


save your first and last dance for me

by manybumblebees



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Four weddings no funeral, Fuckbuddies to Fiancés, Getting Together, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Philadelphia Flyers, Wedding date, Weddings, and there was only one bed, fake dating (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 20:02:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21282464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manybumblebees/pseuds/manybumblebees
Summary: They're several hours, a slow dance, and too many bright orange shots that taste of cinnamon and paint thinner into their joke date to G's wedding when TK looks up at Nolan and says, "Marry me."And that's just their first wedding of the summer.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 199
Kudos: 1025
Collections: Hockey Big Bang (2019)





	save your first and last dance for me

**Author's Note:**

> gorgeous art by Fly-guys [here](https://fly-guys.tumblr.com/post/188775262769/fly-guys-theyre-several-hours-a-slow-dance).

_Ryanne Hailey Breton_

_and_

_Claude Dari Giroux_

_invite you to join them_

_at the celebration of their marriage_

_Saturday, the seventh of July * two thousand and eighteen_

*

TK 11:32pm

_Bro when are you flying in? Friday?_

Pats 11:56pm

_flying in for what_

There’s no excuse for Nolan to forget about G and Ryanne’s wedding. He’d stuck the invitation to the front of his fridge with a Flyers magnet the day it dropped onto the doormat at the start of last season. His and Bobby’s fridge, that is, in Voorhees, a thousand miles away from where Nolan’s lying face down in his childhood bedroom in Winnipeg, wondering if it’s worth ignoring TK’s FaceTime request. Nolan knows he’s only calling to make fun of him, he’s not going to be any _help_, but he also knows TK will just keep calling until Nolan picks up.

Nolan answers the call, and he’s greeted with an unflattering angle of TK’s face, his hair sticking up seven different ways under his hat. Instead of saying anything, he just laughs at Nolan for a really long time.

“Dude,” TK says finally, wheezing a little. The reception’s shitty, his voice tinny and off, so he must be at the cabin. “Unbelievable. You _forgot_?”

“Shut up,” says Nolan – as if that’s ever worked on TK. If anything, it only seems to encourage him.

“He’s our _captain_, Pat. Ryanne made you a fucking casserole when you were injured – she’s practically your _mom_. How could you?”

The picture freezes, but Nolan knows TK’s grinning. He reaches to drag his laptop towards him across the bed, propping his phone up against the screen so he can keep talking to TK while he works out how badly fucked he is.

“Stop giving me shit for a second so I can book a flight.”

Nolan pulls up a new tab and starts typing.

TK ignores him, as usual. “I’m totally gonna tell them.”

“I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“Aw, you’d get out of bed for that? I’m flattered.”

The flight options finish loading, and Nolan really, really hates himself. “The only flight’s at, like, six in the morning. Two transfers.” And it costs a chunk of money that Nolan would rather have spent on shoes, if given the choice.

“Shit. I can pick you up from the airport, at least. Where are you staying?”

Nolan groans. “I don’t get the keys to my place until August.”

“So, you’re crashing with me, then,” TK says, matter of fact.

“Fuck,” Nolan says, suddenly struck with a thought. “Are you bringing anyone?”

The last thing he needs is to third-wheel TK’s date the whole wedding. Fuck, everyone’s going to be all coupled up, he doesn’t want to be the only loser going stag. What are friends _for_.

TK tilts his head. “Who am I gonna bring?”

“I don’t know,” says Nolan, gesturing. “Any of your like, forty Tinder chicks from last season?”

Nolan rolls onto his side to dig his wallet out of his pocket so he can key in his card details.

“Nah. I don’t want to give them any ideas,” says TK. “We can be each other’s date.”

Nolan laughs. “Fuck, can you imagine?”

“Hey.” TK sounds weirdly offended. “I’m a good date.”

“There’s just no way that’s true, bud.”

Nolan can’t even remember TK ever going on a date, beyond like, taking Chipotle over to a girl’s house, which he probably thinks is the height of romance.

“I’ll prove it to you,” says TK, in that tone of voice he gets when he’s had a terrible idea and nothing Nolan or anyone else can say is gonna stop him from following through on it. Like that time he tried to dry out his Jordans by sticking them in the microwave, and now every time he heats up a burrito, his whole apartment smells like burnt plastic. And also, like, the shoes are fucked, obviously.

“Don’t,” says Nolan, pointlessly, like TK isn’t going to dig his heels in on this. 

“Do you want to crash at mine or not?”

“I can just get a hotel room.”

“Yeah, but, it’ll cost ya.”

Nolan reaches to pull a pillow over his head. He’s pretty sure it’s gonna cost him either way.

“Whatever,” he says, a little muffled by the pillow. “Fine.”

*

TK picks him up from the airport that Friday in his mud-spattered Jeep, blaring a shitty country song so loudly that Nolan can hear it before he’s even fully out of the terminal.

“I’m not getting in until you turn that off,” Nolan says when he reaches the truck, hitching his duffle bag an inch further up his shoulder. He’s been up since four, and the kid sitting behind him on the plane kicked the back of his chair the whole way to Philly, and the last thing he needs is to listen to Luke Bryant for the entire drive to TK’s apartment. It’s bad enough he recognises the song.

TK smirks beneath his sunglasses. “Fine, take the train, see if I care,” he says, and puts the car in gear.

Nolan rolls his eyes and yanks open the rear door. He knows his bluff’s been called. “I thought this was supposed to be a date,” he says, throwing his bag in the footwell and laying the suit carrier on the back seat before walking around the car to climb into the passenger’s seat. “At least turn it down.”

“Date’s tomorrow,” TK says brightly, practically shouting over the radio. He reaches to turn it down by a hair. “And picking the music is like, third date territory. I got you coffee, though. I knew you’d be grumpy.”

He gestures at the cup holder, where there’s a Wawa cold brew waiting for him. Nolan grabs it gratefully, dropping into the passenger’s seat.

“Admit it, you missed me,” TK says, smug as hell, as he starts the engine.

“No,” says Nolan, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck off.”

“You fuck off,” TK says fondly.

“Hey, what are you wearing?” says Nolan.

TK opens his mouth, but Nolan adds “To the wedding,” just in time to cut off the smart-ass remark. He can see what TK’s wearing, and it’s the most TK outfit of all time – a camo tee that sits just high enough on his bicep to show off his tattoo and a pair of ratty grey sweats with a stain on the thigh that, best case scenario, is fish guts. Absolute best case. His hat is frayed at the brim and turned backwards. He looks like he hopped a plane to Philly straight from the lake, which, on second thought, is probably exactly what happened. There’s probably a cooler of fish in the trunk.

“You’ll see. Don’t worry, I’m gonna look good for you, baby.” TK waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Jesus, why did I agree to this?” says Nolan, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. TK flashes him another toothy grin, white in his tan face.

He doesn’t say anything when Nolan reaches to plug his phone into the aux cord as soon as they hit the freeway. TK’s stubborn, but he has no attention span – the trick is just to let him think he’s won until he forgets he ever cared in the first place. So Nolan queues up some Kendrick Lamar, something he knows they both like, and TK launches into a story about Chase crashing his dirtbike at their parents’ farm and dislocating his shoulder, barely pausing for breath, just a constant stream of words like he’s trying to fit three weeks of talking into the space of a car ride to his apartment. He’s clearly starved for attention after being alone in the city for like, a day, max. Nolan mostly tunes him out, but it’s nice, all the same. Relaxing, in a way, like one of those white noise machines. People pay good money for those. Nolan gets this shit for free.

He’d rather jump out of TK’s moving truck than admit it to him, but if he’s honest, he _has _missed him.

*

“Did you get your guest room set up?” Nolan says when they’re already in TK’s building. Their building now, technically. In a month or so, when he gets the keys.

He probably should’ve asked sooner. Last time he’d been in there, it’d just been a stack of boxes TK’d never bothered to unpack, and TK had waved his hand and said something vague about getting a bed in there “eventually”.

TK stares at him blankly, blinking. “Oh, fuck.”

“So that’s a no then.”

TK laughs. “Honestly, I never even thought about it. My couch is pretty comfy, or you’re welcome to bunk with me.”

“You want us to sleep in the same bed on the _first date_?” says Nolan. “I’m not that kind of girl, Teeks.”

“First of all, yes you are,” says TK as the elevator dings on his floor. “And second, my bed’s huge. I wasn’t asking you to spoon me or anything. I mean, unless you want to.” He grins.

“Oh, I’m little spoon all the way, bro,” Nolan bats back easily.

TK grins wider. “Good to know.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “The couch is fine.”

The couch, it turns out, isn’t fine. TK had threatened violence if Nolan turned down the A/C, but he also doesn’t seem to own any blankets, which shouldn’t have been a surprise given that the entire contents of his kitchen are a few mismatched forks, a Flyers mug he definitely stole from the Skate Zone, and a drawer crammed so full of takeout menus it’s always just slightly ajar.

Nolan pulls his hoodie back on and wedges himself against the back of the couch, curling in on himself against the chill. He considers giving up and bunking with TK – it wouldn’t be that different from sleeping in the same room as him, and he’s pretty sure TK had been joking about spooning him – but he’s too stubborn, so he stays on the couch, catching a few fitful hours of sleep before he’s woken up by the shrill sound of TK’s alarm blaring from his bedroom.

TK makes him breakfast, at least, and he tops up Nolan’s coffee whenever he starts grumbling about how damn early it is. They both get dressed after breakfast, and it’s not until Nolan emerges from the bathroom to toss TK his tie that he realises they’re wearing, essentially, the same outfit.

“Oh, we match,” TK says, like it’s a good thing, and makes a face when Nolan raises an eyebrow at him.

“Too much?”

“It’s a little like, Men in Black, dude.”

TK finishes tying Nolan’s tie and throws it back to him, pulls his own one over his head and tosses it on the bed. Pops the top button on his shirt. “Better?”

“Yeah. You look good.”

“Thanks, babe,” TK says, grinning widely.

“Those bridesmaids aren’t going to know what hit them.”

“Bro, this is a date,” TK says, mock-serious. “I’m not gonna ditch you to hook up with a bridesmaid, and you better not, either.”

Okay, maybe he’s actually serious.

Nolan sighs and rolls his eyes. “You’re so high-maintenance.”

“Just want you all to myself, baby,” says TK, and slaps his ass on his way out.

*

The wedding is like, fine.

TK’s next to him in the chapel, and the folding chairs aren’t really designed for hockey players – even one of TK’s size – so their knees are knocking together, which wouldn’t really be an issue, except that TK won’t stop fidgeting, his knee bouncing, hands moving restlessly, folding and unfolding the impeccably calligraphed programme booklet. He probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it – this might be the longest he’s had to be quiet since their last team meeting, back in April, and it’s got to be killing him a little. Or like, a lot.

By the time Claude makes his way to the top of the aisle, chatting and joking with his groomsmen, it’s killing Nolan, too. He reaches over to pluck the battered programme out of TK’s hands and gets a quick, guilty smile. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that TK isn’t gonna love sitting still and not talking for over an hour, even if he claims to love weddings. He probably loves the part afterwards, where he gets to drink and party and be his natural, obnoxious self.

Seconds later, TK starts fidgeting with his cufflinks, instead. Nolan hadn’t noticed those – TK’s actually made an effort today. His suit even fits him properly, like he’s had it tailored instead of just letting his mom buy it for him like he usually does.

Predictably, the cufflink goes clattering to the floor in seconds. TK ducks down after it and hit his head on the chair in front when he comes up again. He hisses a curse word, rubbing his head as he straightens and apologises to the scandalised member of the Giroux clan sitting in front of them. 

“You’re a nightmare,” Nolan points out.

“Yeah, I know,” says TK.

He struggles to get the cufflink back on for half the service, until Nolan takes pity on him and grabs it off him. He pulls TK’s hand into his lap him to push the silver nub through both layers of starched white cotton, twist the end bit to secure it.

“Thanks,” TK whispers. He starts to pull his hand back, but Nolan covers it with his own. TK smirks, leaning in close.

“Bro, are you trying to hold my hand?”

Nolan can feel his face heat. “Only so you’ll stop moving,” he hisses. “You’re driving me nuts.”

TK’s smirk widens. “Do it right, then.” He wriggles his fingers until they’re interlaced with Nolan’s, palm to palm, and yeah, now they’re definitely, very much holding hands at Claude’s wedding. TK’s giving him a look like he’s daring Nolan to pull his hand away, so Nolan squeezes and leaves it there, because fuck it, he’s not gonna let TK be better at dates than he is.

They stand up to mumble along to a few hymns and sit down again. Nolan surreptitiously checks his phone while Ry’s aunt reads a sappy poem and some bible passages. His hand’s getting clammy, and he has to flex his fingers a few times to keep them from cramping, but he’s pretty sure if he lets go he loses some kind of unspoken bet, so he keeps holding TK’s hand throughout the service. Eventually, he kind of forgets it’s happening until midway through the vows, when TK squeezes his hand hard enough to hurt, and Nolan looks, and TK has tears in his eyes.

“Dude,” Nolan whispers, but TK just shakes his head. His bottom lip is trembling. Nolan’s kind of freaking out. The only other time he’s seen TK cry was when he took a Gudy slapper to the nuts in practice, and at least that time it made sense _why _he was in tears, but right now, Nolan’s pretty lost. He tries pulling his hand free in case it’s like, a cramp situation, but TK just clings on tighter and makes a noise that can only be described as a sniffle.

He wants to make fun of him, but it seems kind of mean, so he just squeezes TK’s hand, gets a teary smile in return.

After G and Ry have done the whole thing with the rings and the kissing and they all get up to applaud, Nolan jabs TK in the ribs. He feels a little bad about it, because TK’s still crying a little, but he hisses, “What the hell was that?” all the same.

“I just love weddings, okay,” TK says, wiping at his eyes with one sleeve between claps. “Leave me alone.”

Claude and Ryanne start making their way back down the aisle, and Nolan stops giving TK shit long enough to smile sweetly until they’re out of the chapel. He punches him in the back of the shoulder as they’re filing out of their seats and start to make their way outside.

“You cried,” he points out.

“Whatever, dude,” TK says, aiming a dirty look at him over his shoulder. “Sometimes I have feelings. You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks,” Nolan mumbles.

Nolan hasn’t been to a wedding since he was a kid – none of his buddies from back home are quite there yet, thank god, and most of his cousins are younger – and he definitely didn’t realise how much of it is just standing around waiting for the next thing. Gina assures him it’s normal, they’re just taking pictures, and then someone walks by with a whole tray of champagne and someone else walks by with a platter of tiny salmon tarts, and Nolan doesn’t care so much any more. He grabs two glasses of champagne with one hand and a whole handful of the tarts with the other, shovels them all into his mouth before turning to hand TK his drink.

TK’s got two of his own, as well as a mouth full of salmon tarts.

He swallows, grins. “Gallant, bro.”

“Shit, are you gonna cry again?” Nolan bats back. He’s pretty sure TK stopped, but he has his sunglasses on, so for all he knows, he’s still going. Freak.

“Like I said, just love weddings, man, what’s wrong with that?” He throws back half a glass of champagne in one gulp, motions expansively with the glass like he’s about to launch into a whole speech. “Imagine like, loving someone so much you gotta spend a year planning this whole day just so you can tell everyone you wanna be with them for the rest of your life. That’s huge, like. That’s amazing. How do you not cry?”

“I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

“I guess I am. I love all that shit. Flowers, candles, the whole deal. I’m great at that stuff.”

Nolan snorts. He’s known TK nearly a year, and he’s seen him buy a girl flowers exactly zero times – and yeah, there’s like, the theoretical possibility that he’s out there throwing rose petals on chicks’ beds and _not _bragging about it to Nolan, but it isn’t _likely_.

“Really makes you wonder why you’re single, bud.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

TK gives him a lopsided grin, so there’s maybe a shred of self-awareness there. He downs the rest of his champagne. “Hey, we should take a selfie.”

Nolan digs his phone out, and Gina’s already holding her hand out for it, which, fine – saves him the trouble of trying to squeeze TK’s short ass into the frame. Nolan dumps his champagne flute on a table and sling an arm around TK’s shoulder, smiles bright when Gina tells them to.

“Cute,” she says. “Send that to your mom.”

Eventually, they’re herded into another building, and they line up with everyone else to congratulate G and Ry and their parents. TK holds up the whole line talking to G’s dad about something that can definitely wait until later – or like, never – until G tells him to move his ass. He has a big goofy grin on his face that’s got to be making his cheeks hurt as he pulls Nolan into a hug. “Thanks for coming.”

“Congrats, bro. Great vows. Teeks cried.”

Behind him, TK laughs. “I did.” It’s barely any fun to chirp him, sometimes – he doesn’t seem to know how to be embarrassed.

Nolan hugs Ry and tells her she looks gorgeous.

“Really, you guys couldn’t get dates?” G pipes up. “You’re pro athletes, for god’s sake.”

“Patty’s my date,” says TK, and gropes Nolan’s ass.

“Oh, okay,” says G, and looks between them suspiciously.

“It’s a joke,” Nolan clarifies. Unnecessarily, he thinks – it should be obvious. G’s giving them a weird look, though.

“Right,” says G.

TK all but bodies Nolan out of the way to give Ryanne a hug. “Hey Ry, killer dress. I hope you like our present.”

Claude stares at him. “You got us a present together?”

“Uh, to be honest, Gina picked it out, we just paid for it.”

“_Together?_”

“It was just easier.”

“Right,” G says again, and glances at Ryanne. They clearly have an entire conversation in that one look, in a weird married telepathy kind of way that they must’ve perfected in the past half hour while Nolan was eating his body weight in salmon tarts.

“I’m sure we’ll love it,” Ryanne jumps in diplomatically.

“Oh yeah, it’s really sick,” says TK, who absolutely doesn’t have a clue what Gina bought, because to be honest, neither does Nolan. They wouldn’t even have brought a present if Gina hadn’t bailed them out by buying something unprompted and telling them to cashapp her the money.

They stand around talking for a while, which means TK bounces from group to group trying to befriend every last person at the reception and Nolan trails after him for a few minutes until he gets sick of it, finds some of the guys, and zones out listening to Laughts and Chloe talk about their latest trip to Europe. People keep pushing drinks into Nolan’s hand, probably out of habit, though it’s not like anyone’s going to card him at a wedding.

TK shows up again a while later, weaseling his way into the group and throwing an arm around Nolan’s waist. “Having a good time, bud?”

“Yeah, not bad.”

“Cool,” says TK, and leans most of his weight on him. He seems pretty tipsy already, which bodes well for the rest of the wedding. Nolan slings his arm around his shoulders. TK’s the right height for it.

A while later, they move into the next room for dinner, where there’s a couple of long tables set up with tasteful beige tablecloths, little lanterns made out of jam jars. It looks like G and Ryanne’s living room scaled up and covered in a shitload of flowers and candles.

They find their little hand-written place cards, next to each other and across from Ghost and Gina, Laughs and Raf and their girls further down. As soon as they sit down, TK picks a flower out of the centrepiece and tries to light it on fire, refuses to stop until Nolan threatens to stab him with a fork.

“Ry said you guys are on a date?” Gina says pleasantly over their bickering.

TK promptly drops the flower and reaches to cover Nolan’s hand with his own. “Yeah, we’re giving it a go,” he says, smiling sweetly.

“He’s trying to prove a point,” Nolan corrects.

“Patty doesn’t think I’m good at dates.”

“Is he?” Ghost asks, turning to Nolan.

“I mean–” Nolan starts to say, making sure to pause a while, build up the suspense. “He left me alone for like an hour earlier, but aside from that.” He shrugs.

“I was like, socialising, dude. I was giving you space. Do you want me to not leave your side? You got it.”

TK scoots his chair a few inches closer, slings his arm around the back of Nolan’s chair. Nolan shoves him, not hard enough to actually knock him over, but hard enough that TK tries to look offended for a whole three seconds before he gets distracted by the waiter putting his appetizer in front of him.

They get through dinner mostly in peace, at least until dessert. TK’s mid-way through demolishing Nolan’s chocolate tort – which he’d pushed over to him wordlessly as soon as the waiter had been far enough away, getting a meaningful look from Gina for his trouble – when he says, “Just to let you know, I’m going to get you drunk and dance with you later, and it’s going to be embarrassing as hell.”

“It always is when you dance.”

“Fuck you,” TK says good-naturedly. “It’s gonna be a slow dance. Get ready.”

Across the table, Gina’s watching them with a smirk, eyes flicking back and forth between them. Nolan can feel his cheeks reddening.

“I am _not _slow dancing with you.” 

“Sure,” says TK. “Want another drink?”

He actually winks, doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing off from his chair and heading for the bar. Nolan trudges after him mainly to escape Gina.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Dude, I told you what I’m doing. Here.”

TK’s pushing a shot glass of orange liquid into his hand and clinks his own against it. Nolan sighs and throws the drink back in unison with TK, doesn’t give himself time to question what he’s drinking. He really should’ve, he thinks, as it hits the back of his throat and burns the whole way down. There’s like, cinnamon, maybe.

“What _is _that, jesus.”

“It’s called a Ginger Rocket,” TK croaks next to him.

“It’s fucking terrible.”

“Yeah,” says TK, and orders another round.

The second shot isn’t any better than the first, but it also isn’t any worse, and by the third one, Nolan actually doesn’t mind the taste, which should worry him more, but he’s pretty sure these things are like, 90% pure alcohol, so nothing really worries him much. Not even when the music changes into something slow, just a guy crooning over an acoustic guitar – the kind of shit his sisters listen to when they get dumped by their idiot boyfriends – and TK starts dragging him onto the dancefloor.

It’s awkward for a minute, TK’s hands on Nolan’s waist and Nolan’s hands on TK’s shoulders, a real school dance vibe, and then TK blatantly checks what some of the other couples – the _real _couples – are doing, steps a little closer and wraps his arms around Nolan’s waist, and then it isn’t so bad.

The next song is Aerosmith, so obviously they have to stay out there, TK tucked under his arm and howling along loudly and off-key, even though he clearly only knows like, five of the words. After that it’s Lionel Richie, and Nolan doesn’t know who made this playlist, but it definitely wasn’t G, because it’s like, actually good, except for how the next song is a slow one again. It’s a John Legend song, Nolan actually doesn’t mind it.

It’s easy, this time, to pull TK close, fall into a rhythm with him, gently swaying. TK’s a pretty good dancer, which he knows, and there’s no point reminding him because he’ll just be smug about it. He’s grinning up at Nolan, face red from exertion and those fucking shots, and Nolan doesn’t absolutely hate it, is all.

It’s The Killers after that, which TK knows at least ten of the words to, pogoing up and down the dancefloor until Nolan’s crying with laughter. When the song ends, TK collapses on him in a sweaty mess, laughing, and Nolan drags him to the bar to get him another one of those orange shots, Gritty’s Piss or whatever they were called.

“Fuck, I’m boiling,” TK says, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face. “Does this open?” He moves a gauzy curtain out of the way to twist the knob on one of the glass doors. It gives, and opens to a rush of – Nolan has to admit – blessedly cool air.

TK’s outside before Nolan knows what’s happening. He follows him, just to make sure he doesn’t fall into a water feature and drown, or anything. It’s dark out. TK’s drunk as hell. 

“Where are you even going?”

TK’s crunching down the gravel path, stops on a decorative little bridge and turns to wait for Nolan. “I don’t know, it’s an adventure. What’s that?” He points at a shape in the distance and is off again. Nolan grabs him by the back of the jacket just so he doesn’t lose him – he has no illusions about talking TK out of whatever he’s trying to do.

The path leads to a little gazebo, which looks kind of creepy in the dark. TK trips on the steps and nearly faceplants into the damn thing, spared only by the hand Nolan still has bunched in his jacket.

“Should we be out here?” says Nolan, because someone has to be the voice of reason.

“Probably not,” says TK. He’s found a switch on the floor and flicks it, and a string of little lights threaded through the lattice over their heads light up between the leaves, throwing mottled shadows onto the gazebo, the flowers, and TK, who tilts his head up.

“Whoa. That’s romantic as hell.”

They must use this place for photoshoots, or cake-cutting or whatever. There are all kinds of flowers growing up and around the trellis that Nolan can’t name, throwing a sweet scent into the air. There’s some roses in there, he’s pretty sure. He knows those.

“You wanna have one of these?” says TK. He gestures behind him vaguely, at the soft light spilling through the high windows onto the lawn, the shadowy outlines of couples dancing.

“A wedding? Someday, sure. Do you?”

It’s a pointless question, he realises, the way TK’s been going on about how much he loves weddings. He gets this vague, dreamy look in his eyes.

“Oh yeah. Hell yeah.”

Nolan laughs. “You got it all planned? Suit picked out, venue, cake flavour?”

TK smirks. “Oh yeah, chocolate, for sure. _Triple_ chocolate.”

“Gross. Don’t bother inviting me.”

“Shit, you don’t wanna be flower girl?”

TK laughs, and sways a little, and on reflex, Nolan reaches out to steady him with a hand on each of his shoulders.

“Good date,” says TK, leaning all his weight on Nolan. He grins. “Great date.”

“You’re hammered,” Nolan points out. TK’s close enough that Nolan can smell his cologne, can feel the heat bleeding through his shirt.

“So are you.”

He’s not wrong. Nolan isn’t at the unsteady on his feet stage of drunk, but he’s far from sober. TK’s hands have ended up on Nolan’s hips, like when they were dancing, and Nolan grins, remembering that. Their stupid dancing – their stupid date. Truth is, he’s had worse dates. At least TK didn’t talk about his ex the whole night, or ask him for his teammate’s phone number, or any of that shit. He’d just cried on him a bit in the church, and eaten Nolan’s dessert, and got him a little wasted on those shots, and said a bunch of cheesy shit about weddings.

TK’s grinning back at him. A bit of his hair has fallen into his face, and Nolan reaches to tuck it behind his ear without thinking about it. It’s a joke date, he reminds himself. It’s fucking _TK_. The alcohol must be going to his head.

This close, TK has to tip his head back to look at him.

Nolan doesn’t know what possesses him to tip forward and kiss him, but TK lets him. It’s slow, almost lazy, and the small part of Nolan that’s aware they shouldn’t be doing it is silenced by the part of him that’s really into the way TK’s pressed against him, the hand sliding around the back of his neck and into his hair, the soft pull of teeth on his bottom lip. He can feel TK smile against his mouth for a second before he tilts his head to get a better angle, and he can feel the heat rise in his own cheeks.

It’s not until Nolan remembers that literally anyone could walk in on them here that he pulls away. TK looks flushed, a little dazed. His hand’s still in Nolan’s hair, and Nolan should say something, but before he can think of what to say, TK blurts out, “Marry me.”

Nolan’s so surprised he laughs. “_Seriously_?”

TK’s eyes are wide and serious. “Pats, hear me out–”

“It was one kiss.”

“It was a good fucking kiss,” TK says, raising his eyebrows. Nolan doesn’t have a retort, at least not in the time it takes TK to take a breath and start talking again. “Listen, we’d be great together. We like the same things. You put up with all my shit. I make you laugh. Isn’t that the dream?”

“Is this what you’re like with girls? Is that why you’re single?” Nolan says, reeling a little.

TK just smiles, wide and slow and drunk, and he’s got that look in his eyes again, that no-good look.

“Marry me,” he says.

“No.”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t need to.”

TK opens his mouth again, but just then, Nolan realises that he doesn’t have to listen to this. He can just kiss him again, which is way more fun, and objectively way less stupid – which isn’t to say that it isn’t stupid, but, you know. It’s all relative. TK keeps trying to talk for a while, but Nolan’s persistent, and eventually, he just puts his hand back in Nolan’s hair and rolls with it.

*

Any reasonable person would be embarrassed about drunkenly making out with a teammate at their captain’s wedding and proposing to him, would try their best not to think about it – Nolan’s trying – and hope that one day, it’ll just be that weird thing they did one summer that they don’t ever talk about.

Not TK.

TK sends flowers.

They’re on the kitchen table when Nolan gets back from his workout – a dozen red roses, with Aimee and Maddie clustered around them, arguing.

“What sixteen-year-old do you know who can afford these?” Maddie is saying, gesturing wildly.

“Richie has a job,” Aimee argues.

Nolan dumps his bag by the door and rakes his hair out of his face. “What’s going on?”

“There’s no name on the card,” says Aimee. “It just says, ‘Thanks for a great date’ and a rocket emoji.”

“They’re obviously for me,” says Maddie.

Nolan sighs and rolls out his shoulder, which he’s pretty sure he wrenched flipping tyres. He inwardly curses the idiot who decided to play mystery man, and if it’s gonna mean he misses his nap because his sisters won’t stop bitching at each other, he’ll go _Taken _on his ass.

“Can’t you just take half each?” he tries.

“That’s not the _point_,” says Maddie. “The point is–”

“There’s only eleven,” Aimee cuts in. She’s frowning down at the bouquet, pointing at each rose in turn as she counts them out loud. “Who sends eleven roses?”

“What?” says Maddie, at the same time as Nolan says, “Jesus Christ.”

He can think of someone who would. He can think of exactly _one _person. He stalks back over to his bag to dig out his phone and keys in a message.

_Thanks shithead_

TK Facetimes him almost instantly. Funny how he never looks at his phone unless he’s making Nolan’s life miserable. Nolan ducks out of the kitchen to take the call, voice only. He doesn’t want to give TK the satisfaction of seeing how red he is.

“You don’t like them?” TK says, smirk audible. “I didn’t know what flowers you liked, so I went with the classic.”

Nolan sits down on the stairs. “Oh yeah, the classic, eleven roses.”

“Nineteen seemed like a lot.”

Nolan laughs, despite himself.

“I hate you so much. My sisters are about to kill each other over who they’re for.”

TK just laughs.

“Listen to what you did,” says Nolan. He holds the phone out towards the kitchen, where Aimee is shouting, _When has Jackson _ever _bought you flowers? _and Maddie shouts back, _Lots of times!_

TK’s still laughing when Nolan presses the phone back to his ear. “You couldn’t have signed the damn card, bro?”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’ll be more specific next time,” says TK. He continues in a sing-song voice, “Dear Nolan, thanks for holding my hand and sticking your tongue down my throat at G’s wedding, sorry I was too wasted to get it up when you tried to give me a handy. Love, Travis.”

“Jesus,” says Nolan. He’s so, so grateful he turned his camera off. “Like, at the wedding? I don’t even remember that.”

“Nah, at my place. You were pretty trashed. Jake got you sambuca shots after we went back inside because you wouldn’t stop whining about losing your sunglasses.”

Nolan groans. That does sound familiar, and he has a vague memory of stumbling into TK’s apartment and pressing him into the wall. He’d woken up the next morning with his shoes still on to the sound of TK throwing up in the bathroom. It hadn’t been like, particularly romantic.

And yeah, he’d been in TK’s bed, but he’d just chalked that up to the A/C and TK’s lumpy couch.

Nolan rests his forehead on his hand and stays like that, curled into himself, his face burning. This is better. Like, in the grand scheme of things – TK thinking it’s funny, torturing him about it is better than pretending it never happened and having this hang between them, this huge thing they never talk about. Probably. 

In the kitchen, his sisters’ voices spike, and a door slams.

“Just tell them they’re yours,” says TK.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll just head in there and be like, ‘Sorry girls, mystery solved, Teeks sent me flowers.’ That’ll go over well.”

“Why would TK send you flowers?” says Maddie, from way too close. Nolan snaps his head up and she’s standing at the foot of the stairs, right in front of him. 

“Uh,” he says. He frantically goes through the conversation with TK in his head for anything incriminating he might have said in her earshot. “Good question,” he adds, stalling.

“Because I want to marry you,” says TK, in his ear.

Nolan rolls his eyes. “Because he’s an idiot,” he says to Maddie. “I’m hanging up now,” he tells TK.

“Wait, wait– are we on for Simmy’s wedding? Second date?”

“Not in a million years, bud.”

*

_Wayne and Crystal_

_request the pleasure of your company_

_at their wedding celebration_

_on Friday, July 20th, 2018_

*

Teeks 🎣 4:06pm

_Bro what are you wearing on saturday_

_Don’t wanna match again_

_Or are you bringing someone???_

Pats 4:13pm

_No_

_Blue armani white shirt brown shoes_

Teeks 🎣 9:57pm

_Sick. Second date!!!!_

Pats 10:01pm

😑

The fact that neither of them get a plus-one to Simmer’s wedding doesn’t stop TK from going on about it being their second date for two weeks, pestering him about where he’s staying and when he’s flying in. He sends Nolan a screenshot of a hotel booking, and on the day, he picks him up from Pearson, already in his wedding clothes. 

“I can’t believe you found an outfit that’s louder than you are,” says Nolan, giving him a quick one-armed hug in the arrivals hall.

TK’s wearing a burgundy suit with a floral shirt and matching pocket square, a black tie with tiny white polka dots. It’s pretty out there, by his standards.

“Do you hate it?” TK says. “The girl in the store said I could pull it off.”

“It’s not like, awful,” Nolan concedes.

“Oh, so you like it?” TK grins brightly and grabs Nolan’s duffle bag out of his hand.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

In the car, TK digs into his jacket pocket, pulls out a carefully rolled-up tie, already tied, and drops it in Nolan’s lap before starting the engine. It’s navy blue, like Nolan’s suit, with thin white and tan stripes running diagonally across it.

He has a tie in his bag that he was gonna ask TK to tie for him – could’ve just had his dad do it at home, but then he would’ve had to wear it on the plane, and flying in a suit is annoying enough. It sucks enough on the team plane, turns out it sucks even more when he’s flying economy class.

Nolan slips the tie over his head and slides the knot up to his throat. It’s nicer than the one he brought.

“You can keep that,” TK says. “Brings out your eyes.”

Nolan ignores the blatant attempt to goad him. “Is it one of yours?”

“Nah. They were two for one.” He grins. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

It’s not too long a drive to the place where Simmy’s getting married. Within the hour, Nolan’s sitting next to TK in another church, grabbing another programme off him before he completely destroys it. It’s like, deja vu. At least he isn’t wearing cufflinks – that’s personal growth.

“So, have you thought about it?” TK says with a sideways glance.

“Thought about what?” says Nolan – casually, he hopes, though he can feel himself flush. He may have, once or twice, thought about the way TK felt pressed up against him at G’s wedding, the scrape of his teeth on Nolan’s lip. The half-remembered moment of shoving him up against the wall in his hallway and fumbling his pants open. He doesn’t really want to talk about it in a church, though, at ten in the morning, surrounded by his teammates.

TK gives him a look. “Marrying me.”

“Oh,” says Nolan, relieved. “Are you still on that?”

“Yeah, bro. Till death do us part.” He smirks. “To love, cherish, the whole deal. I’d cherish the hell out of you, bud.”

Nolan snorts, tries to hide it by burying his face in a programme. “Dude.”

“What? Did you not think I was serious?”

“I just thought you were wasted.”

“Oh, I was, but I still meant it. Being drunk doesn’t make you wanna do things you wouldn’t wanna do otherwise, Pat.”

“It doesn’t?” Nolan mutters, face flaming. He hunches over, elbows on his thighs, and focuses hard on the programme in his hand. It has like, baby pictures of Simmy. Fascinating stuff.

He can hear TK laughing quietly above him, which is – whatever. It’s not like Nolan didn’t know he was fucking with him. TK slaps him on the thigh a few times and then just leaves his hand there when the service starts and Nolan sits up, a warm weight. On cue, he starts to sniffle during the vows, and Nolan covers his hand with his own without really thinking about it.

Turns out, once you’ve been to one wedding, you kind of know the drill. There’s the church service, then there’s a lot of standing around, then there’s food and speeches and cake cutting, and then there’s dancing. Drinks just keep appearing out of nowhere, either passing by on a tray or handed to him by TK, and by the time they sit down to eat, Nolan has to knock back a couple of glasses of water just to recover a bit.

Most of the speeches are pretty forgettable, except for Jake’s, which is all stories from his and Simmy’s first year with the Flyers. TK’s enraptured, leaning forward in his chair like he’s mentally taking notes – and fuck, Nolan hopes he isn’t getting any ideas, because if these are like, the cleaned up stories Jake’s happy for Crystal’s parents to hear, he’s gotta assume the reality was ten times messier.

After Jake, it’s the maid of honour’s turn. Nolan exchanges a wordless glance with TK while she’s being passed the mic, and they both slip out of their seats and head for the bar.

Simmer’s wedding bar doesn’t have custom shots laced with paint stripper, but it does have an impressive array of different scotches, all of which TK insists on sampling, like he’s a scotch guy all of a sudden.

“I could be a scotch guy,” TK says, taking a sip of some pretentious single barrel imported shit that’s supposed to have notes of oak and peat, according to the article Nolan googles.

“Can you taste the peat, bro?”

TK swallows, tilts his head like he’s thinking about it. As if he has a clue what peat is. Moss, or something, Nolan thinks.

“Tastes like scotch.”

Nolan chokes on his drink, trying his best to cough quietly so he doesn’t interrupt the speeches, wheezing while TK pounds him on the back and the bartender politely ignores them except to whisk TK’s empty glass away.

“Second date, Pat,” TK says, when Nolan’s caught his breath. “Are you gonna put out?”

“I don’t know, will you still respect me in the morning if I do?”

“What makes you think I respect you now?” says TK, and shoves a handful of olives into his mouth.

“I mean, you asked me to marry you.”

“Oh yeah, that,” says TK with his mouth full, and Nolan gets a great view of a bunch of half-chewed olives.

He’s not sure what’s worse – that he ever kissed TK in the first place, or that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about doing it again since like, his second drink. The way his mouth is like, slightly crooked on one side. The way it’s always moving. It’s distracting.

TK swallows his olives and smirks. “That mean you’re thinking about it?”

Nolan says, “I might’ve had something else on my mind,” which could mean anything – training, the Blue Jays’ postseason chances, climate change – except that the way it comes out of his mouth, it really only means one thing, and if TK doesn’t catch the subtext right away, the fact that Nolan’s in the process of going bright red will probably hammer it home for him.

TK’s smirk widens. “Is that so?” he says, in a tone of voice that should be reserved for people who aren’t your teammates – like, maybe Instagram models. Girls in bars. Just– girls, probably. “Do you uh, wanna go somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, mouth dry all of a sudden. He picks up his glass to take a sip, forgetting it’s empty, and sets it back down awkwardly. “Yeah, we should.”

TK’s already pushing off the bar, and Nolan nearly loses him weaving through the crowd, finds him again pushing into an empty hallway with chairs stacked along the wall. The door clicks shut behind them, dulling the music and the noise of the crowd. TK doesn’t give him any time to feel weird about this, just wraps a hand around the back of his neck like they’ve done his a hundred times instead of, like, twice, maybe, and pulls him down to kiss him.

He’s not nearly as drunk as last time – he’s definitely going to remember this one, and know with devastating clarity that he’s the one to lean all his weight into TK, press him against the wall and kiss him back hungrily. TK bites at his mouth, and his hands are restless, roaming under Nolan’s jacket and messing up the shirt he’d spent half an hour ironing this morning, tugging it out of his pants so he can slide one warm hand up Nolan’s back.

It’s not so much kissing as it is just full-on making out, which is a thought Nolan has and promptly ignores, his hands on TK’s hips.

TK’s the first one to pull away, his breathing kind of fucked – worse when Nolan tips forward to bite at his neck a little, just under his ear, getting a perfectly embarrassing little _sound _from TK for his trouble. He leans back to grin at him.

“We should probably head back in there.”

Nolan jerks his head in the vague direction of the ballroom. They’ve definitely missed most of the speeches, maybe the cake cutting, too, but it’ll be easier to slip back unnoticed if people are already dancing.

“Yeah, uh, I’m gonna need a minute.”

TK’s voice is rough, and his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, which is so distracting that it takes Nolan a few seconds to even register what he means.

“Oh,” is all Nolan manages to say, glancing down at where TK’s clearly hard in his slacks, and then back up to his face.

Nothing happens for a second or two, and then everything happens at once. One moment they’re just staring at each other, and the next, TK’s kissing him again, and Nolan’s pulling him away from the wall, backing him blindly through the door of the men's room and into the sink, a little too rough, maybe, judging by the way TK winces.

“Patty–” he says, and Nolan’s breath sticks somewhere in his throat. He’s not too worried TK’s gonna say they shouldn’t do this – it’s TK, he makes more bad decisions in a week than most people do in a year – but he’s not totally confident he won’t.

“What?” says Nolan, when TK doesn’t continue.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” TK says, and laughs.

“Oh. Me either.”

That doesn’t stop him from running his hand down the front of TK’s shirt, landing on his belt, giving it a little tug. It’s TK who pushes off from the sink, walks them into one of the cubicles, and shuts the door, but it’s Nolan who shoves him against the wall and drops to his knees.

If he’d given himself time to think about it, he wouldn’t have risked his Armani suit on the bathroom tiles, even though they look immaculate, but he doesn’t think, he just does it.

“Jesus, Pat, are you– _fuck_,” says TK as Nolan fumbles with his belt buckle.

“Don’t– _talk_,” Nolan says, just a fucking hopeless thing to ask, really, but his cheeks are already flaming and he definitely can’t do this if TK’s going to provide, like, commentary. 

He pulls TK’s boxers down and gets his dick out, doesn’t pause before tipping forward and wrapping his mouth around it. It’s weird, but not as weird as he thought it would be. After the first frantic few seconds of thinking, _Fuck, I’m sucking a dick_, Nolan gets caught up in the sounds TK’s choking back, the hand he’s resting gently on his head, tentative, the barest press of his fingertips to guide Nolan into a rhythm, and then it’s kind of– good. Kind of hot the way TK’s trying to be quiet and failing. Nolan’s kind of hard about it. His jaw starts to ache, but it’s over pretty quickly after that, TK babbling, “Shit, Patty, I’m–” and coming in Nolan’s mouth.

Nolan pulls off to spit in the toilet, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Dude, a little warning?”

TK’s flushed, his chest heaving. “Sorry, I just– get up here, let me–” He gestures vaguely, but Nolan gets the point.

As soon as he gets to his feet, TK’s grabbing him, a little come-dumb and uncoordinated. He kisses him sloppily and spins them so it’s Nolan with his back against the wall, TK dropping to his knees. Nolan’s been hard for a while and he isn’t going to last long, not with the way TK’s mouth looks around him, the way he’s jacking him with one hand while he works the head with his mouth. He’s got like, technique. Showoff.

At least Nolan knows how to get off without moaning the whole time. He does kind of clench his hand in TK’s hair, but TK doesn’t complain, doesn’t pull off, either, when Nolan tells him he’s close – just keeps his mouth on Nolan’s dick and fucking, takes it. Jesus. Nolan’s shaking with it, grateful he has a wall to lean on.

TK swallows and gets to his feet and then immediately kisses him again, which is kind of hot, but mostly pretty gross.

“Patty,” says TK, eyes wide and serious. He has both his hands on Nolan’s face, and Nolan can still like, taste him. “Marry me?”

Nolan drops his head onto TK’s shoulder and laughs, maybe a little hysterical.

“For fuck’s sake, Trav.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know. That’s the worst part.”

Nolan lifts his head to check if TK looks like, crushed, or anything, but he doesn’t. He just looks like he sucked dick in the mens room, mostly – his mouth red and his hair more of a mess than usual. Nolan reaches to flatten it down a little, but it doesn’t do a whole lot of good.

“We should, uh–”

“Yeah,” TK agrees.

*

** __ ** _Michael & Kerstin_

_would like to invite you to join them at their wedding_

_for a day of celebration_

_11.08.18_

*****

Pats 10:09am

_Dude_

_[photo]_

_My fucking apartment is flooded_

Teeks 10:10am

_Oh fuck_

Raf’s wedding is two weeks before camp. It’s just a get-together with the team and their wives and girlfriends, really. He’d had his proper wedding in Austria over the summer for his family – and Laughs, who’s practically family by now – so it’s just an excuse for a party, which is fine with Nolan, because he’s been in enough churches for one summer, and he’s sat next to TK in enough churches for probably a lifetime. 

Nolan flies back to Philly early and spends a few days getting all his stuff out of storage, piling it into TK’s guest room. The day before Raf’s wedding, he picks up the keys to his new place from the front desk first thing in the morning and heads up there.

TK told him to wake him up for this, but it’s not like, that big a deal. He’s been in this building enough that it already pretty much feels like home, and being two floors up from TK in an apartment that’s nearly identical to him except that the kitchen is on the other side isn’t in any way earth-shattering. TK’s gonna be up there enough, he can let him sleep.

When he unlocks the door and steps inside, he’s immediately up to his ankles in water. Nolan hasn’t had his own apartment before, but he’s pretty sure that’s a bad sign. He wades around a bit in case it’s just like, a puddle, but it’s the whole fucking hallway, and the bathroom is worse.

He texts TK before he goes back down to the lobby, his shoes squelching the whole way.

The guy at the front desk comes up with him to confirm that yeah, he isn’t lying about there being half a foot of water in the apartment, and then goes back down to call the building manager, who calls a plumber, who calls Nolan to ask him a bunch of questions about his pipes that he doesn’t know the answers to.

By lunchtime, Nolan’s lying facedown on TK’s couch, exhausted. He’s talked to too many people on the phone and none of them have been any help. It took building management like three hours to admit that he can’t move into his place until this is fixed, but they won’t tell him when that’ll be, and until then, he’s technically homeless.

TK’s made him like, six cups of coffee. At some point, he must’ve ordered lunch, because food just appears on the table while Nolan’s on the phone to his dad. He’s hovering, and the second Nolan hangs up and shoves a tuna roll into his mouth, he says, “Hey, you can stay as long as you need to, okay?”

He keeps looking at Nolan expectantly while Nolan chews and swallows, which is kind of uncomfortable.

“They said it could be weeks, dude,” Nolan says, “I don’t wanna like, impose.”

TK shrugs. “You’re not in my way. I can get another key made.” He pats Nolan’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about it, alright? Is anyone else gonna call you?”

“No, they’re just gonna handle things with the plumber and call me after the weekend, they said.”

“Cool, let’s just play some Xbox then? Grab a beer later?”

“Yeah.”

Being told not to worry about it doesn’t like, work, but shooting things in _CoD _for three hours and then going to some shitty bar with TK does help to take his mind off things, at least until they get back to the building and Nolan glances at all his stuff stacked up in TK’s guest room.

TK shoulder-checks him with all the grace of someone who definitely drank four of those girly cocktails even though he’ll only admit to one. “It’s cool, Pat. Just move in with me. Way more fun.”

He’s taking his clothes off, for some reason, in the living room. “Plus,” he says, trying to take his jeans off and walk to the bedroom at the same time and tripping over his like, everything. “Cuddles.”

“Right,” Nolan says flatly, steering TK away from where he was very much about to walk into the doorframe.

TK flops onto the bed, spreads his arms wide. “Come here. Get spooned.”

Nolan would say no if he were sober, but he’s not, so he wakes up on the day of Raf’s wedding with TK still latched onto him. It takes him a good five minutes to free himself, because TK’s clingy, but he makes it to the kitchen eventually and puts the coffee on. If he’s gonna stay here, he should probably make himself at least a little useful.

The coffee’s cold by the time TK wanders into the room, showered and dressed.

“Nice outfit,” says Nolan.

It’s a grey check suit, three-piece, with a white shirt.

TK’s face lights up, greedy for praise as always. “Yeah, you like it?”

“I like this,” says Nolan, and hooks a finger in gap between two of his waistcoat buttons. He doesn’t mean to tug, he just does, and TK stumbles a step closer.

“I picked it out myself,” says TK, smiling smugly, as if picking out his own clothes is some kind of achievement, and not something most people over the age of five do on a daily basis.

Nolan knows he shouldn’t encourage him, but he says, “It’s nice,” and “You’re getting good at this wedding thing.”

TK smirks up at him. “I’ve always been good at this wedding thing.”

Nolan remembers, suddenly, that the wedding thing – _their _wedding thing – normally involves making out with TK, and with a hot curl of his belly, he remembers that TK is – has been – very good at that, and that he’s standing close enough that he has to tilt his head back to look at Nolan, which is too close for ten in the morning, sober.

He drops his hand from where it was still hooked in TK’s waistcoat. “When are we leaving?” he asks, hoping the change of topic isn’t too obvious, trying valiantly to stop thinking about TK’s mouth. 

“Soon as you’re dressed,” says TK, and bounces off to check under the table for his shoes. “You wanna grab lunch first?”

*

The wedding doesn’t start until mid-afternoon, and there’s no ceremony or anything, which is kind of weird. There’s just a dinner, which TK spends blatantly eating off Nolan’s plate without asking, and Nolan steals half his dessert in retaliation because it isn’t chocolate, for once, and he’s like, due. The wine is really good, and Nolan hates that he notices that, now. All these weddings are turning him into a wine guy. He’d been hoping to avoid that until at least his thirties.

The weirdest thing of all is that TK makes it all the way to the first dance before he cries. They’re both a bottle of wine deep, standing pressed together in a circle of people as Raf leads Kerstin onto the dancefloor. TK’s in front of him, and Nolan leans down to say in his ear that he’s surprised Raf didn’t pick one of his weird Austrian polka songs for this, and TK starts to say something, but stops, ducks his head to wipe at his eyes.

“God, you’re soft,” Nolan teases, but he feels like, weirdly fond about it. He still can’t believe this is a thing that really happens, except for how it keeps really happening right in front of him. And yeah, the song’s nice, the way Raf and Kerstin are looking at each other, totally absorbed in each other, is like, a lot. Nolan isn’t about to cry about it, but it’s cool that TK is. He kind of gets it.

Nolan knocks his hand into TK’s and lets him lace their fingers together, doesn’t bitch about how hard he’s squeezing. When the song ends, and the next one starts, and a few other couples file onto the dancefloor, Nolan nudges TK in the back so he goes, too, and they stay out there for a while, even though it’s a couple of slow songs in a row, arms around each other’s waists and TK’s face pressed to the front of Nolan’s jacket. Nolan’s careful to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, feels a little less than chill about it all, like any little chirp could set him off.

TK pulls him away before the up-tempo stuff starts blaring, pours them both another glass of wine from the bottles left on the table after dinner. They sit down for a while watching their teammates make idiots of themselves on the dancefloor. It’s wild how many of them got married this summer, but kinda cool, too. Cool that they got to be there for it. He says that to TK and gets a real sappy smile in return.

He doesn’t even see G walk up until he’s standing right in front of them, bowtie crooked and a look on his face like he’s about to give them a lecture.

“You guys are making me sad. This is what, your third wedding of the summer and you don’t have dates? Get your shit together.”

“_Get_ my shit together? I _have _my shit together, dude. First of all, Patty’s a smokeshow. Look at him.” TK makes a sweeping gesture in Nolan’s direction. “He’s a fucking babe. His ass just– it doesn’t quit.”

Nolan’s grateful he’s already flushed from the alcohol and can’t actually get any redder. He makes sure to hold eye contact with G a second too long, giving him a smug smile.

“Secondly, he’s a really good date.” TK ticks off on his fingers: “Good listener, perfect gentleman, holds my hand, gets me snacks, great–”

“He’s joking,” Nolan says over him. He could be about to say _dancer_, but something tells him– 

“– kisser,” TK finishes.

Yeah. 

“He’s drunk,” says Nolan, before Claude can say anything. “He thinks he’s funny.”

“Here’s what I think is funny,” says Claude, jabbing a judgmental finger in their general direction. “There’s a bunch of Kerstin’s hot friends right there,” he waves his wine glass towards the dance floor. “And here you two losers are.”

“Like I _said_, why would I trade down?” He gestures at Nolan again, as if to prove his point.

“Hey,” he says. “How did you guys know your girls were, you know, the one?”

Claude looks at him consideringly, like he’s trying to gauge whether this is some kind of trap. “The night we met, Ryanne helped me shotgun a beer because both my arms were in casts. That was it for me.”

That definitely wasn’t in the wedding vows, Nolan would have remembered.

“Sick,” TK says. “What about you, Simmy?”

Wayne shrugs. “I don’t know if it was one moment, but when you’re with a person and you know that forty years from now, she’s still gonna be the best thing you ever laid eyes on, you gotta lock that down. When you know, you know.”

“Oh.”

TK’s doing that thing where his eyes get huge and he looks a little like a sad basset hound.

“You’re gonna make him cry again,” Nolan warns. 

“Shut up,” says TK, without any heat. He’s definitely a little misty-eyed.

“Jesus, you’re fucking soft,” says Claude.

“Fuck off,” TK says, sharper this time. “I just love… love, you know? My parents have been married for 25 years and they’re still crazy about each other. I want that.”

“You’re 21, kid. You should be fucking sorority girls.”

TK sighs. “I don’t want to hook up some bridesmaid I’ve just met who just wants to brag to her friends and have me buy her a handbag. I want something real, like you guys have, and I don’t want to wait until I’m 30. Sue me, I guess.”

He pushes up from his chair abruptly and shoulders between Claude and Wayne. Nolan watches him weave through a crowd of people and disappear. 

“Look what you did,” he says to Claude, trying to ignore how weirdly empty the space next to him feels, where TK’s been all day. His arm’s still around the back of the now-empty chair.

Maybe Claude has a point.

“What’s up with him?” says Wayne.

Nolan shrugs. “He’s weird about weddings.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” says Claude, who isn’t any more able to shut up when he should than TK is. “If he’s so desperate to like, settle down, why’s he spending all his time joined at the hip with you?”

Nolan meets his gaze, level. He knows his face isn’t giving anything away. He could clear up that mystery for Claude in seconds, but he’s not going to. He thinks about the gazebo, about the lights twinkling in TK’s eyes as he said _Marry me_, breathless and reverent and clinging onto Nolan, and he realises with a fierce stab of protectiveness that he’d rather tell Claude he’d sucked TK’s dick in the men’s room at Simmy’s wedding than tell him about TK proposing.

“Beats me,” he says flatly. “I guess I should go check on him.”

He gets up to follow TK, movements deliberately slow so G and Simmy don’t give him shit for like, running after him. They let him go without comment, though Nolan can hear them talking to each other as he walks away. Probably about how weird he and Teeks are. Whatever.

TK’s at the bar, predictably.

“Oh, good,” he says, sounding like his bad mood’s melted away. “Here.”

He tucks the bottle of champagne he’s holding under his arm, hooks a finger in Nolan’s jacket pocket, and upends a bowl of cashews from the bar into it. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, outside. I’m sick of this shit. Why’s G gotta be so fucking judgy, man? What does he know about anything?”

He’s already moving, not waiting for an answer, through the double doors and into the hall. Nolan trudges after him. He spends a lot of time just trying to keep up with TK, these days, in one way or another. 

There’s a little pond behind the venue with a couple of benches. TK makes straight for them like he knew they were there, like he pre-scouts these wedding places for the right place to slip off to at the end of the night. Maybe he’s just got a weird drunken radar for this kind of shit.

TK starts peeling off the foil on the neck of the champagne bottle, bracing it on one hip.

“Did you steal that?” Nolan asks. He doesn’t _care_, particularly, just that it feels like someone should say it. It’s usually him, with TK. Somewhere along the way it became his thing, to keep TK in check, or at least to offer a token protest, once in a while. Just so he can say he tried, afterwards. In case anyone asks.

TK shrugs, twisting the wire on the champagne cork. “It’s an open bar, who cares?” He wraps his hand around the neck of the bottle and wedges his thumb underneath the cork, wriggling until it comes free with a loud pop and goes flying off into the trees above them. A bird tears from the foliage with an offended squawk.

“Nice shot,” says Nolan.

TK shakes the champagne off his hand where it overflowed from the bottle. “A little wide.”

“Yeah, stick to clay pigeons.”

Nolan stretches his legs out in front of him and takes the bottle when TK offers it. He takes a long drink from it and sets it down next to him on the bench. TK drops down on his other side, close enough that Nolan can feel the warmth of him bleeding through his suit. He puts his arm back around TK’s shoulders without thinking – it’s automatic. He’s just a good height for it, the perfect armrest.

He can hear the leaves rustling on the trees. It’s peaceful. Feels like they’re miles away from the city.

“Is it too soon to miss the lake?” says Nolan, looking out over the little pond. He wonders if there’s fish in it.

TK says nothing, but he takes the champagne bottle back and puts it to his lips.

This is their last wedding of the summer -- camp starts in two weeks. Back to reality. Nolan’s gonna spend so much time with TK this season, it’s ridiculous to think he’ll miss him in any fashion. It’ll be different, though. There’s regular TK, who takes thirty-minute showers and almost makes them late for breakfast every single morning and doesn’t know how his phone works, and there’s wedding TK, who wears suits that fit him and dances with him and cries every single time. Who keeps asking to marry Nolan.

“Hey,” he says, knocking his knee into TK’s. He hasn’t said anything in over twenty seconds, which means something’s up. “You haven’t been like, pining for me or anything, right?”

Nolan’s pretty sure he would’ve noticed if he was – TK isn’t exactly subtle about anything – but it would explain a few things. 

It takes a second for a crooked smile to come across TK’s face. “No, dude. Sorry.”

“That’s cool. Just trying to understand where your whole like, ‘Marry me’ thing came from.”

“Oh, well, you know. You kissed me.”

Nolan sighs. TK really is going to lord that over him forever. He should probably have thought about that before he did it. Or like, thought. Period.

“You propose to everyone you kiss, is that it?”

“Not _all _of them.”

“_Most_ of them?”

TK shrugs. “Pretty much just you. And my ex.”

He picks at the foil on the neck of the champagne bottle, peeling bits of it off and rolling them into little balls. “Before we broke up, I thought I was gonna be with her forever, you know. And like, yeah, I was nineteen and an idiot– no offense–”

“You’re an idiot at any age, bud. Pretty sure I’ve been smarter than you since I was born.”

TK shoves him a little. “I’m trying to have a moment here, do you mind? Like, you didn’t know me back then, and I’ve kinda been playing the field a little since then, so I get how you’d think that’s what I’m like, but I’m really not. I’ve hooked up with like, a ton of girls in the past couple of years, and I’m just over it, dude. It’s not as much fun as people make it out to be. I just wanna get to know someone and make them happy, and I don’t care if G or anyone think that’s soft, or whatever.”

“So what are you proposing to me for? We’re not even together.”

He’s pretty sure making out a few times and swapping blowjobs in the mens room at Simmy’s wedding doesn’t mean they’re dating, although, it’s TK, so it doesn’t hurt to check.

“Here’s the thing,” he says. “You love me.”

Nolan snorts. “That’s a stretch. I tolerate you.”

“Nah, bro. You choose to spend like, all your time with me. You moved into my building–”

“Hagger kicked me out ‘cause his girlfriend was moving in.”

TK just laughs. “Yeah, and there was nowhere else in Philly you could live, and no one else in the whole damn city to be your wedding date. Three times, bud. There’s no way you forgot _three times_, or that you don’t have ten girls in your phone who’d drop everything to go with you. You just didn’t bother asking them ‘cause you like going with me. ‘Cause you love me.”

Nolan rolls his eyes so hard it hurts a little. “You’re delusional, bro.”

TK’s counting on his fingers again. Nolan would make fun of him for not being able to count to five without help if he could get a word in. “You let me listen to country music in the car. No one laughs at my stupid jokes more than you do. You bring me food, you fix my wifi, and you keep saying you’re going to kill me in my sleep but you never do.”

“That’s called _being friends_, dude. That’s like saying Raf should’ve married Laughts.”

“Okay, yeah, but–” TK pauses, his grin stretching wider. “You kissed me. And that wasn’t a, like, I’m drunk and you’re _there _kind of kiss. That was straight out of _The Notebook_. It was fucking _romantic_.”

“You’ve seen _The Notebook_?” says Nolan, which he realises isn’t the point, but it’s the only thing his brain can process out of everything TK just said. TK, who apparently has thoughts about their drunken kiss, and about Nolan going to weddings with him, and about a whole host of other things.

“Like, four times.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“You do, though.” says TK, too serious. “You know me better than anyone. I’ve told you shit I’ve never even told Lawson, dude. It just makes sense. We want the same things in life – fish, hunt, win the cup a bunch of times. You make me laugh, you get me off – that’s like, the dream, right? Why wait?” 

“You’re serious about this.”

“Yeah, man. You know I am.” TK breaks into a smile. “Are you ready?”

TK holds up the wire from the champagne bottle, which he’s twisted into an approximation of a ring. 

“Oh god,” says Nolan. “No.”

“It’s happening.”

Slowly, so slow it seems like slow-motion, TK goes down on one knee in front of him.

“Nolan–” He stops and scrunches his face up. “What’s your middle name?”

“James.” Nolan isn’t sure why he’s playing along. He probably shouldn’t be smiling, either.

“Nolan James Patrick,” TK says solemnly, “will you do me the honour of marrying me?”

“No.”

TK gets up and brushes off his suit. He tucks the twisted bit of wire in his pocket and shrugs. “I had to try.”

He doesn’t look especially upset, but still, Nolan holds out the bottle of champagne to him, a peace offering, and watches him chug from it. He gets a little distracted looking at his mouth wrapped around the bottle, champagne pouring down his chin and soaking into his collar.

“I’ll take you home, though,” he says, because he can’t help himself, because he does spend all his time with TK, and he’s rubbing off on Nolan. Sometimes, now, he just says exactly what’s in his head without pausing to think about it, and sometimes, it comes out sounding flirty as hell.

TK doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, I’ll take that.”

*

A week before camp starts, Nolan drags TK to Target for emergency supplies. Like a second coffee mug. And a bed. Bunking with TK isn’t like, awful, and he only really spoons him when he’s been drinking, but it’s still not a long-term solution, probably.

“This doesn’t mean I’m moving in,” Nolan says, putting a decent coffee machine into the cart, a couple of pillows, more towels. They refunded him his deposit for the apartment, something about the floor warping, structural damage, whatever. Nolan’s supposed to be looking for a new place, but he’s mostly just been crushing TK in CoD and trying to stop the mini hoop from falling off the closet door every time he lobs a ball at it.

“Sure, whatever,” says TK, grinning. He kicks off and hurtles the cart down the aisle, almost into a display of candles. “Hey, you want a candle?” he shouts over his shoulder. He throws one in the cart and ducks into the next aisle. He adds a NERF gun, a throw pillow shaped like a sloth that he claims looks like Nolan, and a seriously ugly sign with a bunch of words on it like _Use kind words_ and _Tell the truth_ that Nolan gives TK an enormous amount of shit for. TK just shrugs and says, “What do you care what I put on my wall if you’re not moving in?” and there isn’t much Nolan can say to that, so they buy the damn sign.

They order a bedframe and a mattress, and TK says, as he’s painstakingly writing his address down in the little boxes on the delivery form, right there in public, in front of the Target employee who looks like a stereotypical stoner, “I’m gonna miss our cuddle sessions, bud.”

Nolan tries to glare at him, which doesn’t work because TK’s not looking at him. “I’m not gonna miss your snoring,” he bats back, and glances at the Target guy, who looks like he doesn’t give a shit about their conversation.

“I don’t snore,” says TK, which is true, actually, but Nolan says, “How would you know?” anyway, just to be a dick.

They pay for all their shit, including the tacky sign and the three plants TK snuck into the cart god-knows-when, like those aren’t going to die as soon as they go on the road.

The bed arrives, and stays boxed for three days while TK and Nolan have more pressing concerns, like trying to get decent at FIFA so Oskar doesn’t kick their asses all season, and trying out the new menus at all their favourite sushi places, and arguing about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. When they finally get around to putting the frame together, it turns out TK doesn’t own a screwdriver, and then Provy texts to say he’s back in town, and by the time they get back to the apartment it’s one in the morning, and it’s easier just to crash with TK.

Nolan kind of forgets about it, after that. He remembers it sporadically, like when he’s barricading himself inside the guest room in the middle of a NERF gun fight, and then he thinks about how much of a pain in the ass it’s going to be to put the thing together – there’s like, a very real chance they’ll kill each other – and pushes it to the back of his mind again. Bunking with TK isn’t the worst. He’s used to it now. He sleeps on the side closest to the door, like on the road, which TK claims is just habit, even though Nolan knows he’s using him as a human shield in case a serial killer breaks in during the night, which is something TK spends a weird amount of time thinking about, judging by how often he brings it up.

One beer and under, TK stays on his side of the bed. Two beers and over, Nolan’s getting spooned. There’s like, a logic to it. But there are worse things. It’s kinda nice, sometimes.

Two beers and over, Nolan tends to catch himself thinking he could just roll over and make out with him, there’s nothing actually stopping them. TK would let him. But that’s only for weddings. They’ve gotta have like, boundaries.

It’s cool until the night before camp starts. Nolan can never sleep before camp, a mix of excitement and first-day-of-school jitters churning in his stomach. It should be easier than last year, knowing most of the boys and the systems, but there’d been almost no pressure last year, coming off his injury, the vague expectation to be sent back to Brandon. He’s going to have to prove himself, this year.

He can tell TK’s nervous too by how much he talks, spitballing line combos until well after midnight when they have to be up at six, Nolan finally peeling himself off the couch to drag himself to bed, TK on his heels.

He tosses and turns, scrolls through Instagram on his phone with the brightness turned all the way down until he’s seen everyone’s stories twice, and then puts it down and stares at the ceiling for twenty minutes, willing his brain to shut up and let him sleep. That goes about as well as it ever does, which is to say, it doesn’t work at all.

Next to him, TK’s doing the same, muttering a panicked _Shit, sorry_, when he accidentally plays three seconds of a video with the sound on. He rolls over, sighs, and rolls back onto his other side ten seconds later, jostling Nolan both times.

Nolan stares at the ceiling, wills himself not to snap at TK because it isn’t his fault he’s like, breathing really loudly, and even if it was, that’s not why he can’t sleep. He heaves himself out of bed eventually, goes into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

TK’s out of bed and turning the Xbox on when he gets back, and Nolan watches him play a couple of rounds of _Fortnite_ and makes fun of him for being awful, like he deserves. He must conk out at some point – maybe they both do – because the next thing he knows, TK’s waking him up and the room is dark, and he’s gently herded back into bed. TK crawls close, face to face, and it’s late and they’re both tired so it doesn’t matter that they kiss a bit before they fall asleep. Nolan can worry about it later.

*

The next time TK asks him is opening night, just after they land in Vegas. He’s been bouncing off the walls excited since he woke up that morning, and Nolan is like, stupidly grateful he doesn’t sit next to him on the plane and he can be Sanny’s problem for a few hours, because no noise-cancelling headphones on earth can drown out TK when he’s pumped about something.

He drops into the bus seat beside Nolan, grinning widely. “Vegas, baby. You know what that means?”

Nolan raises an eyebrow. “Getting blanked by Fleury all night?”

TK ignores him. “We could get married _tonight_. You, me, Elvis, let’s do it. Oskar can be our witness.” 

“Pass,” says Oskar from across the aisle without opening his eyes.

“I’m changing seats.”

Nolan’s in the aisle seat, and TK can make himself big when it’s convenient, so he trips over his legs pretty thoroughly trying to climb over him.

“Quit playing hard to get, Pats,” TK shouts down the bus.

*

They get blown out, 7-1. Nolan really didn’t want to be right about Fleury.

TK goes awkwardly into the boards sometime in the third and gets up cradling his hand. He doesn’t come back to the bench, and the next time Nolan sees him is when they file back into the locker room, tense and silent. TK’s sitting in his stall with his hand in a splint, curled in on himself.

He doesn’t talk much on the bus back to the airport, files into his seat on the plane without a word. He seems a little better in the car back to the apartment, humming along to the playlist Nolan puts on, starts running through places to order from for dinner.

He’s good until they’re inside and he starts trying to undo his coat, getting progressively pissier the longer it takes him to work the buttons open one-handed. Nolan watches him fumble for a minute before stepping in to help, popping them easily.

“How did you even get these done up?” he says, not to be a dick, just. He’s curious.

“I’m fine, Pats.” 

TK’s mouth is pressed into a thin line.

“Okay,” Nolan says.

“I don’t need your sarcasm right now.”

“Geez, _okay_.”

Nolan fights not to roll his eyes, but TK yanks his coat off one-handed, shoves past him, storms into the bedroom, and slams the door. Nolan can hear him swearing in there, throwing shit around. He considers going in there to try and calm him down, but TK would probably just pick a fight, and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of the night yelling at each other over nothing, so he just grabs a Gatorade and waits until shit quiets down.

When he cracks the door open a few minutes later, TK’s on his back on the bed with one arm slung over his eyes. All the shit’s been swiped off the nightstands, the lamp lying on the carpet, all the sheets torn off the bed.

Nolan bends down to pick up the sloth pillow.

“You did all this one-handed? Pretty impressive.”

“Don’t be a dick right now, Patty,” says TK, but he sounds tired more than pissed off, like he got it all out of his system. He never hangs onto a mood for long, even a bad one.

Nolan flops down on the bed next to him, chin on his arms, and waits him out. He can only see TK’s face in profile from this angle, the sharp line of his nose, the curve of his bottom lip. He looks away before his thoughts, like, wander. 

“Could be four weeks if it’s broken,” TK says, to the ceiling.

“Catch up on your Netflix queue,” Nolan tries. He jabs TK in the side until he squirms and reaches out his good hand to clamp around Nolan’s wrist. Be good if he laughed. Would make Nolan feel a lot better.

“Contract year for me.”

“Yeah, but it’s October, you got time.”

TK sighs. “I guess.”

He’s still holding Nolan’s wrist. Nolan chances another glance. TK’s frowning a little, but the corner of his mouth is twitching. Cool that Nolan can see the exact moment his mood shifts.

“You wanna know the worst part?” TK says.

Nolan indulges him. “What?”

TK wiggles his injured hand. “Gotta jerk off left-handed.”

“I could always give you a hand,” Nolan hears himself say, and flushes about it.

TK’s quiet long enough that Nolan’s heart is pounding in his throat, but then he says, “Maybe not a _hand,_” and trails off meaningfully. He’s looking at Nolan now, and the hand that’s clamped around his wrist moves to his mouth, fingers brushing lightly over his lips.

Nolan stays perfectly still. They’ve never done this in broad daylight, sober, and it feels vaguely like they shouldn’t, but then TK’s already pushing his fingers into Nolan’s mouth, and it doesn’t seem worth it to argue.

It’s just a hairline fracture, after all that, and TK doesn’t even miss a game, though he has to ice his hand after every period. On their next roadie, he drops to his knees next to Nolan’s bed and feeds him some bullshit about how he “owes him one”, and Nolan means to tell him he doesn’t owe him shit, but then he’s already shoving Nolan’s sweats down impatiently and sucking his dick into his mouth, and, like, he can tell him after.

TK guides Nolan’s hand into his hair and holds his head still, makes what Nolan thinks is an appreciative noise when Nolan starts fucking into his mouth shallowly, and then a little more. It’s hot how he just takes it, how he’s moaning around him.

Probably pretty embarrassing that Nolan’s coming into his mouth in minutes, but TK doesn’t say anything, just clambers onto the bed, pushing Nolan onto his back to kiss him, even though he tastes of come. He keeps doing that.

“Fuck, Patty, that was so hot,” TK pants into his mouth, gasping when Nolan gets a hand into his shorts and wraps it around his dick. Nolan means roll them over, get his mouth on him, but TK’s already pushing into his fist desperately, so Nolan just jacks him off until he comes all over what is, like, one of Nolan’s better t-shirts. It’s not a big deal.

“Jesus christ,” TK says. He has the decency to collapse next to him instead of on top of him, at least, scrubbing a hand across his face. He’s breathing hard, and Nolan watches his chest rise and fall, trying not to think too much about how TK likes having his mouth fucked – _really _likes it – and that’s just something Nolan knows about him now. From having done it.

TK catches him looking, which is always bad news.

“Hey, Pats?” he says.

“You better fucking not.”

TK grins. “Okay, okay, but like– you should marry me, though.”

Nolan ignores him. He watches TK kick off his sweats and leave them where they fall, right next to the bed, for Nolan to trip over in the morning. Nolan adds his ruined shirt to the pile and doesn’t argue that this is his bed, and TK has his own – which is _right there_ – when TK crawls under the covers like he plans to sleep here. It’s fine. Nolan’s used to it.

*

TK goes a while without asking him once the season gets rolling, so long that Nolan almost forgets about the whole thing. They spend a lot of time losing, and everyone’s a little tense about it – even TK, who tries harder than anyone not to seem tense. That’s how Nolan can tell.

They win a couple before Christmas, which feels pretty good, and the schedule works out so that it’s near enough worth it to go home for the holiday, even if it feels like Nolan’s travelling longer than he’s actually there for. It’s the longest he’s gone without seeing TK since the summer, and he doesn’t want to admit that it sucks, but it sucks – so much so that both his sisters independently try to give him pep talks about how the season will turn around, there’s still time, like he’s visibly moping.

TK’s coat is on the coat rack when he gets back to the apartment the day after Christmas, his shoes in a pile by the door.

“Hey,” says Nolan, dumping his bag next to them.

“Hey,” TK echoes from the couch, feet on the coffee table, Xbox controller in hand. Nolan heads straight for him, flattening him against the couch with all his weight. He settles on top of him, face wedged in the crook of his neck, and tries to ignore the complicated knot of feelings in the pit of his stomach.

“Miss me, big guy?” says TK, somewhere close to his ear.

Right. That’s what that is.

“No,” Nolan lies, and TK laughs, a low, full-bodied chuckle that reverberates in Nolan’s chest. TK drops the controller and runs warm hands up Nolan’s arms, wrapping one around his back and sliding his other hand into Nolan’s hair.

Nolan takes what feels like the first full breath he’s taken since he left and blows it out slowly. Tells himself to stop being ridiculous. He saw TK two days ago, and he talked to him yesterday. That’s barely enough time to miss him. There’s no rational reason why he should be like this, why dumb shit like Maddie’s boyfriend holding her hand when they were watching _Harry Potter_ on the couch felt like getting the wind knocked out of him.

_You love me_, he’d said last summer, at Raf’s wedding, with a confidence bothering on cockiness, and right now, Nolan’s starting to think he was right all along. And if he’s right about that – he might be right about all of it. _When you know, you know_, he thinks, and then pushes the thought down as far as it’ll go. His life’s complicated enough without all that. He wants to just be here, with TK playing with his hair and laughing at him, and not think about what any of it means.

“Just come with me next time,” says TK.

“Can’t,” says Nolan into the fabric of the couch. He turns his head to make himself heard. “Don’t want Chase to run me over with his dirtbike.”

That gets him another laugh. “He sold it,” TK says. “My mom made him. She got you something, by the way.”

He reaches out to paw at the coffee table, and Nolan reluctantly sits up to give him a better range of motion. TK thrusts a small square box at him, wrapped in blue paper with silver stars. The tag reads _To: Nolan, From: The Konecny’s_.

“Your mom got me a Christmas present?”

“Yeah.”

Nolan slips his finger in between the folds of paper and tears it off to reveal a smart black box. Inside it, on a bed of tissue paper, is a tie. Navy, with small white polka dots. Nolan stares down at it for a long time without saying anything, long enough that TK, next to him, says, “Don’t worry if you hate it, just throw it to the back of your closet. She’ll never know.”

“I don’t hate it,” says Nolan. His voice comes out weird, strained. He’s thinking about TK’s mom – who he’s met once, for like, five minutes when she came down to Philly last season – picking this out for him, wrapping it, and putting it under the tree with all the other presents, like he’s part of the family. He definitely doesn’t hate it.

“What’s happening right now?” says TK. “Are you having a feeling? Do you need me to call someone?”

Nolan shoves him half-heartedly. “Shut up. Tell her thanks.”

“Tell her yourself.”

TK taps a few times on his phone and flings it into Nolan’s lap. He’s pulled up his mom’s number, and Nolan obediently keys it into his own phone and sends her a text. It only takes him twenty minutes of typing and deleting. He even uses punctuation.

Nolan 6:45pm

_Thank you for the present, it’s beautiful. I really appreciate it._

Terri Konecny 7:51pm

_You’re very welcome! I know you mean a lot to Travis, he talks about you all the time. We’d love to have you at the farm this summer._

*

The rest of the season is kind of a blur. They’re good for a while and then they’re bad again. Nolan hurts his shoulder and misses a week; TK hurts his foot and plays through it but bitches about it non-stop.

By late March, they don’t have a shot in hell of making the playoffs, but they’re not _out _out. Late in a tie game, Provy lays a perfect pass right on Nolan’s tape so all Nolan has to do is bury it over Schneider’s glove, and it rings loudly off the post. The Farg holds its breath, and when it goes in, the whole building explodes. It takes Nolan a second to register, and by the time it hits him that it’s in, and the clock is ticking down to nothing, the boys are already spilling over the boards to rush him, a jubilant mass of bodies pressing him into the glass, a chorus of _Woooo _and_ Fucking right, Pat_ and a rain of gloves bumping his helmet, and somewhere in the scrum there’s TK, louder than anyone, screaming “Marry me, Patty!”

Nolan couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried, and when he catches TK’s eye over Riemer’s shoulder, he’s grinning wider than Nolan’s ever seen, looking like he’s about to burst. “Fucking marry me, you beauty!” shouts TK again, loud enough to be heard over the din of the WFC crowd losing its shit.

Nolan grins, and TK grins, and time seems to slow down, this moment stretching endlessly. It hits him like a gut punch, that he wants TK to never stop looking at him like that, to never smile like that at anyone but Nolan.

Nolan has to tell himself he’s breathless from the twenty teammates crushing him, not– anything else. He always thought _When you know, you know_ was a load of shit.

They file off the ice, and Nolan is pulled into interviews, and when he’s finally sitting down in his stall and pulling off his skates with the dumb, smelly MVP helmet still perched on top of his beanie, Claude yells across the locker room, “Hey Teeks, did you get Patty to marry you yet?”

TK pulls his shoulder pads over his head and emerges, messy-haired and laughing. “Not yet. I think I’m wearing him down, though.”

“Are you now?” says Nolan, not loud enough for anyone but TK to hear. He hooks his fingers in the loops of his skate laces and tugs.

“You didn’t say no,” says TK.

“I didn’t say yes, either,” Nolan points out.

TK pauses to grin at him with one leg in and one leg out of his shorts. “Yeah, but you didn’t say no.” He looks pretty smug for someone who just got rejected for like, the twenty-fifth time. Nolan hasn’t counted – it’s got to be in the double digits by now, though. He wonders if TK’s kept track.

Nolan pulls his other skate off and stands up to shove them on the shelf behind him. “So are you just gonna keep asking me forever?”

He’s looking at TK when he says it, so he can see his smile waver for a moment before he forces it back on. “No, not forever.”

“What happened to till death do us part?”

TK shrugs. “That only works if we both want it.” He slings a towel over his shoulder. He’s still smiling, but it’s weird, sad, somehow.

Nolan thinks about it in the showers, and he thinks about it as he’s changing back into his suit, even though TK seems to be back to normal, chatting away to Oskar on his other side like nothing happened.

It had seemed ridiculous, when he’d first asked him, back at the start of the summer, but that was then – before they hooked up, before they lived together. Honestly, sometimes, it almost makes sense, now. They just work together. _When you know, you know_, he thinks again. What a stupid phrase.

He waits until they’re in the car, when TK reaches over to pull his seatbelt out and stops talking just long enough for Nolan to get a word in.

“Don’t stop asking me.”

TK lets the seatbelt slip out of his hand, and it whirrs all the way back in. He turns to look at Nolan. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The look on TK’s face is almost worth how fucking annoying he’s going to be about this, like, forever.

*

** __ ** _You are cordially _

_invited to the wedding of_

_Kari Rose Patrick_

_&_

_Adam Oliver Bennett_

_Friday, the 5th of April, 2019_

*

Mom 11:34am

_Sweetie, could you let Kari know if you can make it to the wedding?_

They were gonna go out. Every time the episode of _The Office_ ends and it starts counting down to the next one, Nolan thinks about getting up, putting some real clothes on, and dragging TK to the bar in Old Town the boys texted to say they were at, but TK’s half-asleep on top of him, all warm and floppy, and it’s raining, so it just doesn’t seem worth it. Maybe after this next one.

Nolan shifts to plug his phone in, and TK’s head jerks up. He blinks and rubs his eyes. Okay, so maybe he was fully asleep.

“Hey,” he says, with a soft, slow smile. Nolan knows that look, and he knows what’s coming next.

“Marry me.”

He’s ramped it up to like, several times a day now.

“No,” says Nolan, grinning. 

“Coward,” says TK, mirroring his grin.

“You wanna go, eleven?”

“Drop ‘em, nineteen,” says TK, his voice rough with sleep. “I’ll lay you out.”

“If you can reach.”

“Oh, low blow, man.”

His grin softens into a smile. Sometimes when TK smiles at him like that, Nolan’s breath catches in his throat. He’s getting used to that feeling, the way he’s gotten used to TK leaving his clothes all over the floor, and TK making him waffles on their days off and making the kitchen look like a bomb’s gone off in the process.

He reaches to flatten TK’s hair where it’s sticking up funny.

“My cousin’s getting married next week,”he says, for no real reason. He’s just thinking about it.

“Oh, are you going?”

“Maybe. If it works out with like, practice and stuff.”

TK hums in return. They’re officially not making the playoffs, so missing practice wouldn’t be the end of the world. It’s been a little bizarre going through the motions with nothing to play for. Bizarre and like, depressing.

They watch a couple of minutes of their show, but Nolan’s distracted. Maybe he could swing it. He isn’t like, super close to Kari, but it’d be nice to see his family. Been a while since he’s been to a wedding.

“You could come,” he says, impulsively. 

“Really?”

He’s a little soft for the way TK’s entire face lights up.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t feel right without you.”

That’s the kind of cheesy shit TK would’ve chirped him for a year ago, but now he just goes dewy-eyed and cranes up to kiss him real soft. “Talk to Fletch about it in the morning?”

“Alright.”

*

{Patties}

Nolan 9:46pm

_Would mom and dad freak out if I brought a guy to Karis wedding_

Maddie 9:47pm

_??????????????????????????????_

Aimee 9:47pm

_nana would_

Maddie 9:48pm

_Like as a date???_

Nolan

_…_

*

The travel’s going to be worse than Christmas, and it’s like, almost definitely not worth it, but they do it anyway. Fletch was unexpectedly cool about it, like maybe he feels bad because you can totally still see the stitches from where Nolan took that slapper to the head a few weeks ago.

They get on a plane to Winnipeg the morning after their game in St Louis, and they’re supposed to be back in Philly the day after to play the Canes on like, no sleep, but it’s their last game of the season with absolutely nothing on the line, so maybe it doesn’t matter. TK’s gonna play like it matters, though, that’s just him.

It’s pretty weird being at the airport together with none of the other guys, sitting around in their suits waiting for their flight to be called. TK let Nolan pick his outfit this time, probably only because he was pacing the hotel room with nothing to do. He went with the green check suit and burgundy tie combo that TK wears all the time. It weirdly works for him.

TK’s jiggling his leg next to him like maybe Nolan’s nervousness is rubbing off on him, or maybe he’s just on his third coffee.

“What did you tell people? About bringing me?”

Nolan blinks at him. “Uh, that I was bringing you?”

“Yeah, alright,” TK says. He frowns a little. “But what would you say if people asked, like. Why?”

“I don’t know, they didn’t ask.”

“Okay,” TK says.

He doesn’t bring it up again, but Nolan thinks about it on the plane, thinks about it on the Uber ride over to the church, thinks about it standing next to Travis outside with a bunch of his cousins, waiting to go in for the service. It’s raining a little. TK knocks his hand into Nolan’s, and Nolan threads their fingers together automatically. Their hands are caught between them, not really hidden, but not out there in the open, either.

“I think you’ve had your fun, boys,” his dad says, behind him, and when Nolan looks over his shoulder he nods down at their intertwined hands.

Nolan’s mouth goes dry.

“Is this a problem?” he says, sharper than he intends. TK starts to slip his hand out from his, but Nolan tightens his grip.

“I just think it’s a little disrespectful to Kari–”

“Kari’s fine with it,” Nolan cuts in. He’d texted her about it, mainly because he wasn’t sure he got a plus-one, but she’d been really cool.

“Don’t make a scene, Nolan.”

“I’m not _making a scene_,” Nolan says, a fraction too loudly, which is like, ironic or something. “I’m holding my boyfriend’s hand, you’re making a scene.”

His dad gives him a steely look. Feels like everyone else is looking at him, too, but Nolan tries not to think about it.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

Nolan turns around fully. He’s still holding TK’s hand, so his arm is stretched awkwardly across his torso.

“Actually–” Nolan starts, his voice rising before he makes an effort to rein himself in. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

He shoves past his dad, giving in to the urge to be anywhere but here right now. He doesn’t realise he still has a deathgrip on TK’s hand and is basically dragging him along until he stops walking and TK is still right there. He squeezes his hand while Nolan tries to remember how to breathe properly.

“Boyfriend, huh?” he says softly.

Nolan’s face feels red, feels like it’s going to be red forever. “Sorry. Was that okay? I know we haven’t really–” he trails off.

TK gives his hand another squeeze and shoots him a lopsided grin.

“I mean, I’d prefer _fiancé_, but it’ll do.”

Nolan laughs, grateful. It’s cool how TK is like, the least chill person, except for when it really matters.

“Fuck,” Nolan says, with feeling. He feels a little shaky, the way he does after a hard hit, or a goal just before the buzzer. “I didn’t think he’d like. Be a dick about it.”

TK’s mouth does a thing, like a quirk, but he says nothing. “What?” Nolan demands.

“I mean, you did kind of spring it on him.”

“Are you taking his side?”

“I’m on your side, Patty. I’m just saying, sometimes you just do shit and expect people to be cool with it. Just give him a minute to get used to it, you know?”

Nolan pushes his hair back behind his ears. He’s not going to like, pick a fight with TK about this in a church parking lot in Winnipeg with his whole family fifty metres away, but part of him really wants to. Another part of him knows TK’s right. He’s making a real effort to focus on that – on the mature part.

“I’m your boyfriend, you should listen to me.” TK socks him in the arm and grins.

Nolan reaches out to mess up his hair. “That’s not a thing.”

Shit, he really did just tell his dad TK’s his boyfriend. Nolan’s chest gets all tight about it, but he doesn’t have time to like, fully spiral about it before a car pulls into the parking lot. It has ribbons and flowers and all that shit and his cousin Kari’s inside in a poofy dress, and TK’s giving her a dumb little wave, and Nolan cracks up. Kari waves back, does an exaggerated shocked face like she didn’t expect Nolan to be here even though he told her he would be like, three days ago, but it’s cute.

“Alright, let’s go inside,” he says, and TK reaches for his hand again, automatic. Nolan’s stupidly grateful. He makes sure there’s a bunch of people between him and his parents, slides into the end of a pew with both his sisters and TK as a buffer.

“You’re crushing my hand, dude,” TK leans in to whisper.

“Sorry,” Nolan mutters. He relaxes his grip but doesn’t let go until the end of the service.

They have to drive to the venue for the reception, but there’s enough of them that Nolan can hitch a ride with Maddie and not have to deal with his dad. He can tell she wants to ask the whole ride over, but she doesn’t seem to want to pester him about it in front of TK, waits until they’re all the way inside with drinks in their hands and TK immediately wanders off to talk to complete strangers. Freak.

Maybe his face is like, too fond, because Maddie punches him in the arm and goes, “_Boyfriend?_” all high-pitched and incredulous. “When were you gonna tell me?”

“This morning?” Nolan says drily.

Maddie punches him again. It actually kind of hurts. “Ow?”

“How long’s this been going on?”

“Officially? Since this morning.” Nolan grins. “But actually like, since the summer. It uh, kind of snuck up on me.” He looks over Maddie’s shoulder to find TK in the crowd, shaking hands with one of his cousins before crouching down to introduce himself to one of the kids.

“Look at you, oh my god,” Maddie teases. “Look at your face. I always knew you liked him.”

“No you didn’t.”

That’s obviously bullshit. Nolan didn’t even know until he was like, already kissing him. Maddie’s only met him like, once.

“He says he wants to marry me,” Nolan blurts out. He downs the rest of his wine in one gulp to cover for how awkward he feels.

“Are you going to?”

Nolan looks down at his empty glass.

“I don’t know,” he says, which is– kind of a lie, actually.

Nolan does a quick sweep of the room. Aimee is in a huddle with some of the cousins, probably gossiping about him and TK. His grandma’s at the bar getting like, her seventh glass of wine, and Nolan absolutely can’t wait to get lectured by her on one thing or another. TK’s by the buffet table holding a baby – which is just so on brand for him. Nolan’s mom is sitting at a table with his aunts. He doesn’t see his dad, but he can probably guess where he went. Just look for the nearest door leading outside.

“I just gotta–” he tells Maddie, gesturing.

Nolan has to go through a couple of hallways and exit through a fire door, crossing his fingers he doesn’t set off the alarm. He doesn’t want to cause an actual scene. As soon as he’s outside, he nearly walks bodily into his dad, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Gross, dude,” Nolan says, flatly, though it takes effort to sound normal. The door falls shut behind him with a loud thud.

“Don’t tell your mom, hey?” His dad reaches to pat him on the shoulder. Normal. Nolan wonders if that took effort for him.

“Like she’s not gonna smell it on you.”

Nolan leans back against the wall of the church, like, downwind from where his dad is puffing on his shitty illicit cigarette, still acting like the whole family doesn’t know he keeps a pack on him and smokes every time he has a beer too many. So like, two beers.

“Can you believe we used to smoke in the locker room when I was playing?”

“I mean, yeah, the 80s were fucked.”

Nolan grins at him. His dad doesn’t even give him shit for swearing, so he must be drunk. Or maybe he feels guilty.

“Not like you kids and your nutritionists and your cryo chambers, huh?”

“Yeah, my body is a temple,” Nolan says, with no inflection.

His dad doesn’t need to know that his and TK’s coping strategy for bad losses is smoking up and eating three Big Macs each. And, recently, making out for several hours, which has been a great addition to the general vibe, in Nolan’s opinion.

They fall silent, and it’s hard to start back up again. Nolan should just say what he came out here to say, but the longer they stand there, the more it becomes obvious that TK was right. Nolan doesn’t have a clue how to talk to his dad about shit that matters.

“Uh, about earlier–” he starts, and scratches the back of his neck, which feels hot and prickly.

His dad stubs his cigarette out on the wall. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re bringing that up–”

They both pause again. Nolan takes a deep breath and for motivation, reminds himself how annoying TK’s gonna be if he doesn’t give this a real shot. “I probably should’ve told you sooner, and uh, I’m sorry for like, springing it on you.”

“So this is serious, then? You and Travis, that’s– real?”

“Yeah. Is that, like, okay?”

His voice goes all squeaky and weird, and it feels like he’s asking permission, which is ridiculous, but he also doesn’t really know what he’s gonna do if his dad says no.

“Of course that’s okay, kid. He makes you happy?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, reddening. He looks down at his shoes.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about. You just caught me by surprise.”

“Okay.”

He’s feeling a little shaky again, and maybe his dad can tell, because he gets pulled into a tight hug. It goes on for a while, and he absolutely reeks of smoke, but it’s still nice. Fucked up how much taller Nolan is now.

“You don’t ever make things easy for yourself, do you?” his dad mutters.

“Actually–” Nolan says, a little strained from how tight he’s is squeezing him. “He’s been the least complicated thing about my life for like, a while. But don’t tell him I said that.”

His dad lets him go with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks for– just, thanks,” Nolan mumbles awkwardly. “I uh, I should go back in there before TK steals a baby.”

“Hey, fatherhood’s a wonderful thing,” his dad quips.

Nolan smirks. “Okay, grandpa.”

When he finds TK again, talking to his aunt, he is, in fact, holding a small child. He’s predictable as hell, and Nolan tells him so, but TK just grins about it and goes back to talking to his cousin Maya in a baby voice.

It’s different than the weddings they went to this summer. They don’t drink nearly as much, partly because Nolan can feel his mom’s eyes on him half the night, and partly because they’re flying back to Philly at like, seven o’clock the next morning. Instead of trailing after TK, Nolan’s the one introducing him around, mostly, and instead of TK crying on him, it’s Nolan who has a bit of a meltdown after his mom comes up to him to hug him and tell him she’s proud of him. He fully has to like, duck into a hallway and breathe into TK’s shoulder about it, and he doesn’t actually cry, but it’s close.

They don’t stay out until the dancefloor starts emptying, instead going around the room to say their goodbyes when Nolan’s mom starts shooting them pointed glances. Nolan finds Kari and gives her a hug, shakes Adam’s hand, and ignores TK behind him promising Kari they’ll come visit them in BC in the offseason.

He elbows TK once they’re in the car. “How many of my relatives are you planning on seeing this summer?”

“Just five or six,” TK says, grinning. Nolan can’t even tell if he’s joking, that’s the worrying part. “Just getting to know my future in-laws.”

“Shut _up_,” Nolan says out of the corner of his mouth. When he looks up, Maddie’s absolutely beaming at him in the rearview mirror.

Back at the house, Nolan goes straight upstairs, flops down onto his bed, kicks his shoes off, and pulls off his tie. TK follows him in and drops down in his desk chair. They’re supposed to be sleeping in the guest room, Nolan belatedly remembers, or at least TK is – he’s not sure what the deal is now his parents know they’re together. His bed’s probably not big enough for both of them.

TK is blatantly rummaging around in his desk drawers, just making no effort to hide that he’s snooping. He coos at a couple of tournament ribbons and shit, and then he pulls out a photo.

“Oh, what’s this? Shit, dude. I thought it was all Jonny Toes all the time for you, I never knew you like, diversified.” 

“What are you even talking about?”

TK spins around in the chair with the dumbest grin on his face, holding– oh, shit.

Definitely should’ve thrown that out.

“That’s my sister’s.”

“Oh, is that why it’s in your room? Damn, bro.” 

TK leans back to dig his phone out of his pocket and aim it at the photo of G that’s definitely 100% Nolan’s. He remembers getting him to sign it when he coached Nolan at a summer clinic one time when he was like, thirteen. He’d blushed so much he’d felt his cheeks would never stop burning, and he’d spent his first few months in Philly worrying that G would remember. If he does, he’s never brought it up. Could be he’s just saving it, though.

“Don’t,” Nolan says, fruitlessly, and half-heartedly lunges for the photo. “Who are you sending that to?”

“Who do you think?” says TK. He’s poking at his phone with one finger like an old man. “He should know how you really feel about him.”

“You type like my grandpa,” Nolan counters. His face is mashed into the pillow, and he’s probably ruining his suit, but he’s comfy. It’s weird how small his room seems now. Weird having TK in here, snooping through his stuff, asking where he keeps his porn. (“On my laptop, you dinosaur.”)

“Did you like, jerk off to this? Had a big ol’ boner for G?”

“Shut up,” Nolan groans. He’s not far off, but if Nolan admits that, he’ll never live it down.

TK’s wiggling the photo and making kissy faces, and Nolan lunges again, manages to catch him by the elbow this time and pull him off balance. Good thing this room’s fucking tiny. TK lets himself be pulled onto the bed, which is also so much smaller than Nolan remembers it being, compared to TK’s bed back in Philly. Barely big enough for Nolan now. For sure not big enough for both of them.

“I didn’t know you were into redheads,” TK says, grinning on top of him. “Should I dye my hair?”

“Oh yeah bud, absolutely. I think you should look more like a leprechaun.”

TK giggles into his neck, his whole body shaking with it. He wriggles around to kick his shoes off, and then just goes limp on top of him like he’s settling in for the night, still in his suit.

Nolan reaches to peel the photo out from underneath his shoulder, glances at it before he puts it back on the desk. G looks pretty goofy there, tooth missing, his hair as long as TK’s. Probably just as embarrassing for him that Nolan has that photo.

“D’you G think would be cool with it if he knew? About like, us? He seemed pretty weirded out at his wedding.”

TK laughs. “Oh, dude, he’s given me like, so many speeches about it. All about how marriage isn’t a joke and I should like, respect your boundaries and whatever.”

“Really? What did you tell him?”

“That I wasn’t joking, and that I respect the hell out of you every night.”

Nolan bursts out laughing, has to muffle it into TK’s shoulder a bit so he doesn’t wake up the whole house. “Holy shit.”

TK grins. “Yeah, you should’ve seen his face. Seriously, though– G’s cool. He wouldn’t be weird about it at all.”

“What about the rest of the guys?” 

TK shrugs. “They’ll get used to it. I’m not worried about them.”

“What about the rest of the league?”

“Pats. I don’t give a shit about the rest of the league. They can take runs at me every shift for the rest of my career, it’ll still be worth it. It’s you and me, bro.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, vaguely. 

TK grins right in his face. “You’re totally thinking about it.”

“I’m not, shut up.”

Nolan shoves him. That turns into a wrestling match, which turns into making out, which turns into Nolan pinning TK down onto his single bed and clamping a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet while he jerks him off with the other, which is the hottest thing he’s ever done only until TK crawls between his legs to blow him.

“I’m not thinking about it,” Nolan says afterwards, his face half an inch from the wall and TK plastered against his back, holding on tight so he doesn’t fall right out of the tiny-ass bed.

TK laughs into the back of his neck.

“Pats, you’re a terrible liar, stop embarrassing yourself.”

“I’m not lying.”

Don’t need to think about it if he’s already made up his mind.

*

{Patties}

Nolan 10:20pm

_Whats the most cheesy, romantic thing you can think of_

Aimee 10:21pm

_Paris_

Maddie 10:21pm

_Candles and rose petals_

_Hot air balloon_

Aimee 10:22pm

_Hot air balloon in paris!!_

Maddie 10:24pm

_Are you proposing????_

*

Nolan thinks about it for the entirety of their _Indiana Jones _marathon. TK has his feet in Nolan’s lap and a huge bowl of popcorn precariously balanced on his stomach. He’s eating it by the handful, which he keeps calling “self care” and “emptying the kitchen.” The season’s over, and they should probably start thinking about packing, putting stuff in storage, booking flights home, not lying around on the couch doing nothing much besides feeling sorry for themselves.

TK’s already been to Paris, is the thing, though it was for hockey, and Nolan doesn’t love the idea of being stuck in a cramped wicker basket with him and a random stranger who’s operating the balloon. There has to be something else.

“Do you think they, like, printed a bunch of rally towels and stuff for the playoffs already?” TK says, clearly the endpoint of a train of thought he’s been having all by himself. “I wonder what they do with that shit.”

“Save it for next year, I guess.” Nolan grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

“Yeah. We better make it next year.” He opens his mouth wide and gestures for Nolan to throw popcorn in it, and Nolan obliges. “Sick,” says TK, chewing. “Hey, should I go as Indy next Halloween?”

“I don’t know, dude, it’s April.”

TK’s already moved on to the next topic, but something about the rally towels sticks in his head, rattles around in there through all of _Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_, which is even worse than he remembers it being. TK’s in the middle of a monologue about how he read online once that Shia LaBouef’s a cannibal when the idea comes to Nolan. He pulls his phone out and sends a text.

*

Nolan Patrick 1:23am

_I need a favour_

Derek Settlemyre 7:40am

_This should be good…_

There isn’t a lot of time to get it set up before the ice gets stripped, and he’s gonna owe Derek and the rest of the guys so big. Like Sixers tickets big. Good ones. He steps out into the hallway to call Derek while TK’s in the shower. Maybe it’s cowardly of him not to correct him when he assumes it’s a prank

He drives TK over to the rink after lunch, and he doesn’t even realise until they’re turning into the player parking lot.

“Season’s over, buddy,” he says, quirking a half-smile at him from the passenger’s seat.

“I know.”

Nolan hasn’t been this nervous since the first day of his first Flyers camp, stomach swooping weirdly. He regrets the two extra shots of espresso in his frappe. “Just uh, just roll with it, okay? Humour me.”

He feels in his pocket for the box, just to check it’s still there.

“Alright,” says TK. He gives him a weird look, but he doesn’t ask, just follows him into the arena and down familiar hallways, weirdly empty apart from a couple of the equipment guys packing up bundles of sticks, boxing up gear. There’s a pair of each of their skates in their stalls.

“Put those on and don’t ask any questions.”

TK sits down and kicks his shoes off. He manages to shut up for like twenty seconds before asking, “Is this like a charity thing?”

“What did I just say?”

“Right, right.” He pauses. “You’re not gonna bag skate me or anything, right?

Nolan ignores him. He considered blindfolding him for this, but it just seemed more trouble than it’s worth, and TK would just make a bunch of inappropriate comments about it and ruin the mood, and besides, they only have about twenty minutes until the next tour group enters the building. The last thing Nolan needs is for a fan to get this all on their phone.

It feels weird heading out on the ice in jeans and a t-shirt, the building empty like it’s a morning skate, but with all the lights off, no one there but him and TK, and someone in the press box up high.

TK skates a tight circle around him, the showoff.

“You wanna tell me what we’re doing here, bud?”

“I don’t, that’s why I told you not to ask questions.”

Nolan whirls around to grin at him, just so TK knows he’s not pissed at him. He’s so far from pissed at him it’s honestly embarrassing. He reaches for him, and TK hesitates a second before letting Nolan take his hand, pull him in. Center ice, in the faceoff circle, the only light spilling in from the tunnel. Nolan’s mouth is dry.

He looks up at the press box and raises his hand for the signal.

There’s a long second where he thinks nothing’s gonna happen, and then the lights start shuttering on, one after the other. TK’s blinking into the glare. Nolan can see the exact moment it registers.

“Dude,” he says, heartfelt, eyes wide. He half turns in Nolan’s arms without letting him go, taking in the words spelled out on the empty seats in the orange rally towels they’d already printed for the playoffs: MARRY ME.

Nolan digs into his pocket and pulls out a little black ring box, pushes it into TK’s hand.

“Ask me.”

TK looks at him, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He bends one leg and smoothly sinks down until he’s on one knee.

“Get up, we’re not doing that,” says Nolan – TK is short enough as it is, he doesn’t need this – but TK just grins up at him, ring box in hand.

“We’re fucking doing it, Pat. You can’t hand me a ring and then tell me not to go down on one knee. Where’d you get this, anyway?”

He snaps open the box, and his whole face changes – the grin replaced by the open-mouthed shocked expression he’d had earlier, when the lights came on.

“Is that– fuck, is that–”

“Yeah.”

“You kept that this whole time?” TK manages with obvious effort, his voice strained.

“Don’t fucking cry,” Nolan warns.

“I won’t. You–” TK starts, and then stops without finishing, looking hard at the ring he’d made out of the wire on the champagne cork last summer. That’s twice now he’s been lost for words, that’s got to be some kind of record.

“Are you gonna cry?”

“Yeah. Shut up.”

Nolan pulls him back in, wraps his arms tightly around him. “Ask me,” he says again, and lets him go. 

TK takes a long, shuddering breath in, and drops to one knee.

“Nolan,” he says, looking up at him so fucking seriously, and it feels like the rest of his life spinning out before him, but it isn’t right. TK doesn’t call him that. He doesn’t _sound _like that.

“Ask me how you always ask me.”

A second’s pause, and then TK smiles, that full-faced smile like he couldn’t contain it if he tried, like he’s taken the measure of Nolan and hasn’t found a single thing he doesn’t like – like he’s going to explode if he doesn’t ask him to marry him right now.

“Patty, marry me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“_Okay?_”

“Yeah, I’ll fucking marry you. Fucking– yes, I do.”

“Cool,” says TK, grinning, with tears in his eyes. Nolan reaches out a hand to pull him up, and there’s a large wet spot on his knee from the ice, and then TK’s grinning right in his face, and then he’s kissing him, at center ice at the Farg with something in his hand that can generously be described as a ring, because Nolan said yes, and they’re getting married, and his head is spinning a little. It’s fucking– it’s wild, is what it is.

“The ring,” he says, muffled against TK’s mouth. He just remembered.

TK pulls back. “Fuck, yeah, you’re right.”

He takes the ring out and pockets the box, reaches for Nolan’s hand. It’s surreal watching him slide it onto Nolan’s hand, and not just because the thing is so fucking ugly and doesn’t fit him for shit. It’s like he’s watching him do it in slow motion, slipping the bit of wire around his finger, where it dangles precariously like any little movement could send it flying down the ice. TK smiles crookedly up at Nolan, fond and teasing.

That’s the rest of his life, right there.

*

{Fly boys}

Teeks 3:46pm

[photo]

_HE SAID YES!!!!!!! _💍💍💍💍💍💍💍🤵🤵👬🧡🖤

**Author's Note:**

> I invite you to imagine the epilogue where Claude attends their wedding and STILL isn't sure if it's a joke or not, but gives a very earnest speech mentioning the signed photo which he ABSOLUTELY remembers.
> 
> the true tragedy of this story is that I started writing it BEFORE Claude's wedding and I absolutely wished [their actual wedding date](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk-yTDqDa67/) into being, but then I spent another 18 months procrastinating and no one will ever believe me.
> 
> with undying thanks to [callabang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang) for the beta and for listening to me whine about this for months!!
> 
> title from Tegan and Sara's "BWU". 
> 
> podfic, remixes, and other transformative works welcome, as long as they're archive-locked. 🖤 i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/manybumblebees).


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